


SCOUNDREL

by Somaybelikeno



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben Solo and the worst roadtrip ever, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force Ghosts, I'm not even kidding about how slow this burn is going to be, Like really slow, Other, Rogue Kylo Ren, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Smuggler Ben Solo, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:01:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 71,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8597167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somaybelikeno/pseuds/Somaybelikeno
Summary: The price of being rescued from Starkiller Base by Grandpa Anakin is that now Kylo Ren is stuck with a snarky know-it-all Force ghost hanging around telling him where he's gone wrong. And why does Anakin's brilliant plan have to result in Kylo pretending to be a defected Radar Technician? Who the hell is this Matt whose identity he has taken anyway?And Rey? The only thing she wants is to flush him out the nearest airlock.He's not exactly living the dream. Unless the dream is finding a way to to become the biggest pain in the ass to that slimy sycophant General Hux.





	1. Somebody's baby boy ain't coming home tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to momo_official for offering to do the beta work on this, and to TehanuFromEarthsea who added some additional edits even though I only asked for help on the second chapter. Also huge thanks to the rest of people at the Reylo fan fiction writers group for their encouragement and kind words! Because of you my ego has been bolstered.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> **"ThisKidsNotAlright"**  
>  **AWOLNATION**  
>  (I still don't know what I'm doing)  
> Fuck  
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which grandpa finally visits.

 

He's a tool. A broken one at that.

 

That's what it comes down to, he thinks, as the snow falls quietly around him, the flecks of white covering him up little by little.

 

It's been a bad day and what a fucking understatement that is. He does not seem to be able to follow his master's wishes even when he succeeds. The Supreme Leader said this would be his greatest test yet, and he hadn't failed. He had risen to it, surpassed the obstacle that stood in his way, proved that he'd not be seduced and it should have made him strong.

 

And yet it's still there. That fucking call. That terrible, all-encompassing call to the light which he can't seem to escape. The Supreme Leader will crush him. Of course. He isn't surprised at the thought. Just like he hadn't been surprised or denied it when Han Solo said that very same thing. His body is a weapon to be wielded, the tool his Master uses to do his glorious bidding until he's used up, dull and broken. And he has served his Master to the best of his abilities, he really has, but he just can't seem to get it right. His actions haven't bolstered his beliefs; Supreme Leader Snoke had promised they would, and the Supreme Leader does not make mistakes. And so, Kylo concludes he is broken. He's done. It's over.

 

His master will know about his failure, despite his success in fulfilling his task, the same way he knows about the light threatening to pull Kylo under. At least this way the Supreme Leader will think Kylo Ren died gloriously in battle when the signal from the position sensor in his belt winks out.

 

_What the kriffing hell were you thinking?_

 

It isn't the first time he’s asked himself what this is all for. The question has been gnawing at him like a bad tooth, a minor irritation that grew into a nightmare before he knew what was happening to him. It's like his Jedi training all over again; that underlying fear that he's following a path not for him. So, what is it all for? Order? Peace?

 

_What use is peace and order if the galaxy has been left in ruin?_

 

The memory of the sudden deafening silence from millions of souls in the wake of Starkiller's red beam overshadows all else in Kylo's mind. He didn't know just how much he could feel of the world around him until a significant part of it was gone, and he can stomach some rare horrors for his grandfather's vision. Kidnapping, torture, massacre....

 

Patricide.

 

Fuck. What had he been thinking? Let’s poke the old man a little, just to see what happens?

 

_What the hell did you do?_

 

He's at war. There must be sacrifices.

 

Kriff, how he wishes the old scoundrel had never come to Starkiller Base.

 

Then his mother would have died in his father’s place. Or maybe he'd have felt both of them getting snuffed out as the weapon fired, and not just his father's life siphoning away as his body fell.

 

What a choice to make.

 

Maybe if he'd had stayed in bed, things wouldn't have gotten this bad.

 

Surely....

 

Kylo shifts in the snow and reaches for his lightsaber with his good hand, biting back a pained cry. The battle fever has faded, and the motion pulls at the wound in his side. Hissing through his teeth, he blinks through the pain and reaches again with a shaking hand, searches with the Force for his weapon.

 

There's no trace of it. The snow doesn't give it up. He stretches his mind to the edge of the crater that has opened near his feet and finds nothing.

 

_Kriff._

 

Pulling his arm underneath himself he moves to get up and this time he does scream. Pain rips through his injuries, but what has him falling back to the forest floor, his eyesight whiting out, is the crippling fire that floods his right shoulder.

 

_Shit, shit, shit!_

 

Fuck him. Fuck the Sith and the Jedi alike. But most of all fuck the pipsqueak of a fucking scavenger from the forsaken fucking junkyard excuse of a fucking planet that goes by the fucking name of Jakku.

 

The pain peaks, and Kylo's breath stops in his throat. For a moment the torment is so furious he almost passes out, and in the seconds of lucidity he curses the treetops above.

 

When the pain fades into an agonizing burn he's lying on his side, clutching his shoulder and gasping into the snow. Something inside the wound has gone terribly wrong. Through the grace of his training he has learned to draw power from pain, but _damn it!_ She messed him up good. Stabbed and sliced him open worse than any opponent has ever managed, all without a lick of Force training. Out of all the things that have gone wrong over the past few days, his inability to hide his weakness from the Supreme Leader, the total annihilation of the Hosnian system, Han Solo dying for nothing, and the girl refusing him, this is what has him sobbing for the first time in years. His arm, the one he wields his lightsaber with, won't fucking move.

 

She really did a number on him, this scavenger girl, this desert rat, standing in the light, but with so much rage underneath her skin. This no one, with so much potential and power she could level entire worlds on her own, and she doesn't even know it. A girl with such hunger, who could become awe-inspiring with the right guidance, and she'd much rather leave him for a traitorous stormtrooper than follow Kylo Ren into greatness. It's as if the Force itself conjured up the perfect person, someone who could understand his burden, only to snatch her away and spit in his face as it does so.

 

Getting out of bed was definitely a colossal mistake.

 

Lying there in the freezing snow, still breathing heavily from pain and exertion, he comes to the conclusion that the universe has decided to screw him over.

 

So....

 

Screw the universe right back.

 

He's done. He's so fucking done with it all he could combust. If this is the end of Starkiller Base, why not him? There's nothing left. The Supreme Leader will dispose of him, if not now then eventually, and if Kylo had any delusions of going 'home' before he stabbed the General's husband, there's certainly none of that left now. What remains of the Republic will grant him a swift execution or a lifetime’s worth of imprisonment.

 

And what of Leia Organa?

 

Well.

 

Her son is dead isn't he?

 

There's no future for him outside his Master's apprenticeship. He has no means build a new organization with, one that could succeed where the First Order fails. Kriff, his own training isn't even finished yet. What can he do that the Supreme Leader can't?

 

The stars above fade for a moment as a sharp light cuts through the treetops. The familiar whine of a spaceship reaches him just before the silhouette of it flashes across the sky and booms out of the planet’s gravity well. Kylo knows, with only a slight sting of disappointment and regret, maybe even some relief, that the Millennium Falcon is going back to the Resistance.

 

He could have been on that ship.

 

Han Solo could have been on that ship.

 

Snow piles around his ears now, falls into his eyes in thick, wet patches. The planet hasn't complained  of its imminent destruction for a while now, and the only sound is the faint wind rustling the trees. It's peaceful, and he realizes that what he's feeling is complete and utter calm.

 

Strange.

 

(Ben! The name ricochets off the walls of the large chamber. Ben is dead. There's nothing for you here, so just go. Run. Why won't you run?)

 

He's really kriffing cold.

 

Something _warps_. The force ripples, a veil is brushed aside just outside of his peripheral vision, and all of a sudden Kylo's nerves stand on edge. He can't explain it, because he doesn't even remotely understand it.

 

It's like seeing someone in the corner of one’s eyes only to turn and find that it is just a shadow. Just his mind playing tricks on him.

 

Only it's not a trick. All of a sudden he's no longer alone in the forest.

 

“Get up.”

 

The effect is not unlike the way the Supreme Leader will sometimes speak to him through the Force if the distance between them is short enough. But the Supreme Leader isn't here; Kylo would have felt it. This presence is nothing he has ever known before. The tone is stern, but calm. Somehow familiar and at the same time not.

 

“Get up,”  it repeats.

 

Kylo turns his head towards the voice, and fails that simple act by proxy as the voice doesn't come from anywhere but inside his own mind. “Who's there?”

 

“Never mind who's there. You need to get up now.”

 

Kylo considers the presence for a bewildering moment, trying to remember if blood loss causes hallucinations. He remembers he's about to die, and decides it's unimportant. “No.”

 

“No?”

 

“No.”

 

A pause.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Why?”

 

This person, whoever they are, does a very good job of gesturing wildly to the crumbling surroundings for something without visible arms, if it has any at all.

 

“This planet is falling apart,”  it exclaims.

 

“Really?” Kylo says. “Are you sure?”

 

“You'll get crushed!”

 

“That's the point!” Kylo scowls at nothing. He's been bleeding for the better part of the last, what, twenty minutes? How long since he stood on that bridge, facing Han Solo for the last time? The fall had lasted an eternity. The moment after, when he came to the realization that the old man was irrevocably gone, took at least two.

 

Kylo sniffs, and cringes at how wet his sniveling sounds. His throat hurts like he's been wounded there too, and his eyes sting. He wipes at his face with his good hand. “What does it matter anyway? he croaks.

 

“It does not,”  the voice says.  “Or I should say it does not to me at least.”

 

_Right._

 

“Regardless, it matters to the living that you live.”

 

Shifting his head to the other side, Kylo tries to catch the owner of the voice. It doesn't help much; there's no one there. “Who are you?”

 

“I told you never mind – oh, kriffing hell. Will it get you up if I told you?”

 

It won't, but that doesn't mean Kylo's curiosity hasn't spiked. “Sure.”

 

“I'm Anakin Skywalker, your grandfather.”

 

Kylo scoffs. “Bantha fodder.”

 

The presence cocks its nonexistent head.  “How so?”

 

“I've talked to my grandfather before. I know his signature. You're not Darth Vader.”

 

“My mother named me Anakin,” the voice corrects, sounding irritated. “It's the name my friends knew me by and that's who, – did you just say I once spoke to you?”

 

“My grandfather did.” Kylo's never told that to anyone except the Supreme Leader, but hell, what does it matter now?

 

“Huh.”

 

“What?”

 

“That explains a great deal.”

 

“Explains what?”

 

“How the son of a rogue smuggler finds himself in the clutches of a Dark Lord. I would have thought there'd be too much of Han Solo in you, to want to live your life under the tyranny of another, Ben Organa-Solo.”

 

“Don't say that name.”

 

“Fine, fine. Then don't call me Darth Vader.”

 

The seething indignity of being scolded pushes aside his irritation. He's the Master of the Knights of Ren; that ought to count for something. “The Supreme Leader is wise.” The words are a mantra; he does it a disservice by spitting it out. “And you're not my, –”

 

“I tell you what. How about you get yourself off this rock and I'll prove it to you?”

 

Nonexistent hands spread in an offering. A deal? Kylo quickly weighs the prospect of oblivion versus a future of more failure and pain. He stays put.

 

The presence huffs.  “You're really not getting up, are you?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why did I think this would be easy?”  it mumbles, and though its words ring in Kylo's head he knows it's speaking to itself. “Fine. See what I care? Not like we can't still talk when you're dead. Then you'll know who I am.”  The presence speaks with the kind of faux finality even a child can recognize as bait, and Kylo distinctly senses the ghost turning its back on him.

 

“It won't matter,” Kylo tells it, and its focus comes back to him. “I don't care who you are, I'm not going back. It ends here.”

 

The ground rumbles. Violent tremors shake through it; juggernauts fighting to escape a black hole. Across the newly opened canyon a half a dozen trees breaks apart from the rest of the forest and sinks from view with the sound of rock grinding against rock.

 

There are eyes on Kylo, thought he can't see them. His shoulder and side, as well as the burn from where the traitor cut him, throbs badly. The snow around the bowcaster wound has turned dark; the blood cooling quickly as it exits his body. For a long while there's only silence from the ghost. Kylo feels himself being studied intently, and without the ability to turn his face away he closes his eyes, tries to meditate to dampen his aches. There's no more need for pain, and besides, he's so tired of it.

 

“May I?”  Although Kylo isn't looking he knows the ghost indicates the ground besides him.

 

“Do whatever you like,” he says. “ I don't care.”

 

There is no body to flatten the snow to Kylo's left, but he still feels something settling there in the Force, crossing its nonexistent ankles and folding its nonexistent hands on its nonexistent chest. How come he has such clear impressions of what it’s doing, yet he cannot see it?

 

“I'm going to be dead for this,”  the ghost grumbles, and then corrects itself.  “Dead-er.”

 

“By whose hand?” Kylo asks. Small talk. Why is he making small talk? He hates small talk.

 

“Someone with a strong right hook.”

 

The air fills with a sound like thunder followed by a long, deep, gravelly moan. That's the sound, Kylo thinks, of a dying Leviathan. An endless creature out of time, out of his childhood books. His heart thuds at his ribs, and he sweats despite the cold. The ghost doesn't even flinch.

 

“Nothing like imminent death to loosen your tongue,” it says.  “So tell me. How did you end up becoming Kylo of the Knights of Ren?”

 

Another bouldering groan shakes the earth. This time, Kylo jerks from the noise, his breathing slightly elevated. “The Supreme Leader is wise,” he repeats without thinking.

 

“Don't give me that,”  the ghost says. “I know a lie when I hear one. What's the truth?”

 

There'd always been _something._ A glitch in the way Kylo saw the world. He knew people. He knew they communicated from the other side of the glass wall, but he could never quite grasp what they were saying. He always seemed to be hearing them from across a vast fields of information; like capsules of knowledge meant to be unlocked were hidden in their words, but he didn't have the key. As a child, he carved the words of the adults around him onto the inside of his skull so he could scavenge them for answers later, because he could never understand what it was they wanted from him. Then there was the fun of watching their confusion and disappointment whenever hints of his real self slipped out.

 

The revelation of his true heritage, as devastating as it had been in the beginning, had been a gift: To realize that it wasn't he who didn't seem to think the way other people did, but they who didn't think like him. The answer had been hidden from him by the people who should have loved him. So he'd cut those bonds, and followed his true path under the guidance of someone who understood, the Supreme Leader.

 

“Peculiar,”  the ghost muses,  “it wasn't like that for me.”  Kylo frowns, because out loud he has said nothing. But before he can mention it the ghost goes on.  “I was offered a way to save my family,” it says with quiet regret.

 

Kylo hasn't bought into the claim that he's talking to his own grandfather just yet. The legends speak of a man with a great vision of a galaxy in order, remade in the image of peace, a man with the iron will and means to make it happen. A petty thing like family couldn't be the reason he turned to the dark. It doesn't make sense. What about power?

 

Still....

 

“That's how you see it,”  the ghost says. “I held the life of my own son in my hands, half of what was left in this universe after my wife, and you think I should have let him die for some ill-conceived version of galactic peace. No. I already knew what loss by my own hands felt like. It's a mistake you won't make twice, Kylo Ren, mark my words.”

 

Nor does it seem that he'll get the chance to, because again, the ground gives an earsplitting roar and shakes, this time so violently it throws Kylo around like dice in a cup. His shoulder screams, and he thinks he might be screaming too, because the agony is so blinding he can't be sure. And for a fraction of a second he senses from somewhere far away, light-years already, someone else's signature, a heartbeat seeking out his own mind's constant thrum.

 

The next second it stops; the noise, the shaking as well as the pain. Kylo lies panting as warmth floods his shoulder, radiating from a hand he can't see. His body could float with the sudden relief.

 

“I think we've had enough of that,”  the ghost says, sounding somehow older, and strangely tired. Kylo has a question on his tongue, but something diverts the ghost's attention.

 

“There's a shuttle,”  it remarks.  “Coming this way. Six stormtroopers and some young general. He seems familiar. A relative of Commandant Hux, I presume judging by the, – Hey. Hey! What are you doing?”

 

Hux.

 

So the Supreme Leader has ordered that slime-ball to come and pick up his apprentice. The snotty git must be besides himself with indignity for being given such a task. Regardless of what feelings the general has on the matter, Kylo is not about to give the ugly brat the satisfaction of finding him carved up and half dead.

 

“I'm getting up.” Kylo scuffles around and slips in the snow with his one working hand, his limbs stiff from the cold, but no longer hurting.

 

“What?” the ghost exclaims. “Why? I mean excellent! But why?”

 

“I told you. I'm not going back, and that shuttle is here to get me.” With difficulty Kylo's on his feet and takes off, limping at first, then running as his limbs warm up. Whatever the ghost did to him, it works like bacta applied to his brain stem. He can't feel a thing. He has to clutch his right arm to his chest to keep it from flapping around.

 

He follows the boiling wound in the earth that had separated him from the scavenger, probably saving his life in the process. Logically, he should be throwing himself into the fiery pit and not making his way along it, but now that he's running he's really running, swerving between the trees like he once did in the forests of his childhood, fighting imaginary battles alongside kids whose names he can no longer remember, on a planet that perished less than a day ago. It would be potentially exhilarating if it wasn't so terrifying.

 

“They're changing course,”  the ghost says, still there in his mind, not sounding at all tired.  “They're still following you.”

 

 _Damnit._ The position sensor. Kylo's still carrying it.

 

He skids, grappling with his belt where the device is hidden inside. He fumbles with his only useful hand and gets it unbuckled only to have it slip in his frozen hand when he tugs at it. It pulls on the fabric where it has been sewn to the back of his tunic, and try as he might Kylo doesn't have the strength left in his fingers to rip it off. Someone in the First Order must have put stock in keeping him on a tight leash, and Kylo wouldn't put it past him that this someone is General Hux.

 

That asshole.

 

He has to stop to yank his tunic over his head, but with only the help of one working arm it catches at his neck, choking him. Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren found dead on Starkiller base. Cause of death: self strangulation by a piece of fucking cloth.

 

Great.

 

“Oh, for the sake of the Maker give it here.”  A sharp tug, and the tunic is gone. The freezing air goes straight through Kylo's sweat-dampened under-layers, and he's left shivering. The scavenger girl had been bare shouldered, dressed for a desert's climate, not Starkiller. He doesn't get much time to further contemplate how cold she must have been, because the lights cut through the trees and then Kylo's moving again, away from the shuttle, away from that sour-faced General Hux, and away from what has been his life for the last seven years.

 

“This way.”  The ghost indicates a path that leads away from the burning crack in the ground. Kylo stumbles mindlessly through the snow, and falls on his face when another tremor shakes the planet.

 

He's going to die here.

 

That's just his kriffing luck.

 

He gets to his feet and continues. His fingers and toes are ice now, his side sticky with blood, and twice he comes to a halt, leaning against a tree because his vision keeps blacking out. The second time he sinks to one knee, heaving for breath. His legs are duracrete, and they're shaking. Exhaustion had already taken him before Hux's shuttle arrived. He can't run much longer.

 

“Just a little further,”  the ghost says, sounding agitated but resolute.

 

Between the trees a clunky, black, angular shape appears, materializing into a downed shuttle as Kylo trudges closer. _Crashed,_ he thinks, _useless_. Behind him lights filter through the forest again and are gone.

 

“No. Just a happy landing.” If Kylo had the energy to spare he would have rolled his eyes at the joke. The ghost is right though, the shuttle appears to have had more of a rough landing than a crash.

 

He shambles inside. Two dead stormtroopers greet him. The one in the pilot’s seat has a blaster stuck to its dangling, lifeless hand, while the weapon of the other one lies not far from its body as if dropped when the trooper fell. It's a strange scene, not quite right. They had been facing each other, but why? Then it hits Kylo that he has just walked in on what is the aftermath of an attempted treason against the First Order. These two killed each other, because one tried to leave.

 

 _Good for you, traitor. Good for you._ Hysterical laughter sits in Kylo's chest, but he has enough control to hold it back.

 

He doesn't get to the controls, because the next second the floor moves and Kylo is thrown sideways. His head collides hard with the bulkhead. All the air leaves him at the impact, and though he lands on his feet he doesn't have the strength to keep himself standing. He slumps down onto his ass, his head swimming. Ones, twice, he pushes his legs underneath himself to get up, but the trek has worn him out.

 

Kylo's eyelids fall heavily, his body has turned numb, and his head hangs without his permission. Something warm and wet creeps down from his hairline and over his cheek. His hands lie limply in his lap. Kylo commands them to make fists, and watches as only his left digits weakly curl and uncurl, fingertips not even making contact with the palm. He can't even muster up the energy to figure out how he feels about that.

 

Maybe this isn't so bad. He could rest here, just for a bit. A year or two perhaps, or forever, like his father before him.

 

He's just so kriffing tired.

 

The shuttle nudges gently, and a faraway hum fills the tight space, soothing him. Something falls on Kylo, some sort of fabric, and though it's coarse, it's warm, and he pulls it over his shoulders with his numb fingers. The familiar feeling of low aerial flight provides a rocking motion, and for a moment his blood-deprived brain takes him back to the Millennium Falcon, to the alcove he'd taken for his own, stuffed with a mattress, pillows and a blanket; his plastic rebels and troopers; his books. In that space he'd made for himself he'd ones slept, and had nightmares about this day. About Kylo Ren and Han Solo standing together on a bridge. One moment his father was there, then next he wasn't, and Ben had known this was the future and that it was his adult self behind that mask. No amount of comfort could pacify a child who knew he would one day kill his own father.

 

He wishes it didn't have to happen, he really does, but the dark demands sacrifices, and,-

 

 _That's a lie,_  his fuzzy brain argues. _That's complete crap and you know it._

 

Is it?

 

He can't see how.

 

In its last moments of lucidity his mind snarls on something nearly intangible, a thought, an idea. It's a good thought, it really is. He'll consider it after he's had some sleep. When he's rested… When he wakes up.... He'll consider it.

 

He will....


	2. The Technician and the Snake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo Ren is on a roller coaster of varying degrees of terrible emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so you know the first chapter of this fic, I originally uploaded it a few months ago and it got almost zero attention at the time. Let me tell you it was a sad sight to behold. Fast forward to last week and this time it's getting comments, kudos and have garnered a modest little group of subscribers. The two versions of that chapter aren't that much different from each other except for one thing: a beta reader. So thanks again to momo_official! Your help made all the difference.
> 
> TehanuFromEarthsea was generous enough to beta this chapter for me. :)
> 
> This work is now rated Mature just to be sure.

He wakes up in pain. From muddled dreams Kylo opens his eyes to an unfamiliar room. The walls appear dark gray in the dim shine from a single lamp. Ominous steel equipment lines the surface of a metal table just by his bed. His heart leaps and Kylo jerks himself into a sitting position.

 

His right arm hangs limp by his side and as he moves lightning bolts shoot through his spine. He grunts, screwing up his face against the pain as he fights vertigo. The skin across his cheek feels stiff, paperlike. There's wrapping around his stomach that hampers his movements. A tube of red leads from a bag hanging over his head to the crook of his left arm. Blood transfusion.

 

Something moves by the door.

 

“Sir, I highly recommend that you rest. The bacta needs another hundred and twenty-three minutes for optimal healing. You'll also need additional transfusions of, -” The old 2-1B droid has its empty eyes turned on him. Kylo's on his feet, reaching out with his good hand, intending to grab and crush.

 

Stars bloom across his vision, and a hot iron rod pierces his brain. Kylo finds himself down on one knee, clutching his head, sweating cold, and queasiness churning in his stomach. The inside of his elbow stings from where the needle was yanked out as he fell.

 

He can't reach the Force.

 

“Please Sir, I really must ask you to go back to your bed.” The droid's feet enter his line of sight, shuffling over the old and worn, but clean floor.

 

He can't  _ reach _ the Force.

 

The steel appliances make a musical clatter as the table they lie on is upturned by the droid's flailing arm as it falls. Kylo's at the door and it slides open with a hydraulic hiss without him having to force any locks. Behind him the droid exclaims another outraged  _ “Sir!” _ after him as he stumbles through, holding on to his limp arm.

 

Kylo stands in the intersection of two meeting hallways. They both look exactly the same, worn down and grimy. He turns his head this way and that, but each route seems as good as the other. Kylo reaches out through the Force and as a result staggers against the wall, crying out as his skull tries to split in two.

 

Another door hisses open to his right, and he looks up through his blurred vision, to see a woman with wide, alert eyes and black hair stepping out from a door further down the corridor to his right. She stops in her tracks when she sees him.

 

“Hey, you're not suppose to be up.” Her hand hangs by the side of her hip where a handblaster is strapped. Kylo chooses the opposite hallway, leaving the woman, like the medical droid, shouting after him in his wake.

 

He only gets a few yards ahead, before the sound of footsteps make themselves known coming down a set of stairs at the end of the hallway. A pale, blond, burly man stops on the last step and scowls when he sees Kylo. This one carries no blaster and Kylo decides that right now the unarmed obstacle is his best option.

 

Too bad he forgot to take his dysfunctional arm into consideration when he made the decision.

 

Kylo's swing at Scowling Guy misses by a good margin, his movements slow and uncoordinated. His opponent gets him in an armlock far too easily. There's a sensation like something ripping in Kylo's shoulder, and like the idiot he is, he grabs for the Force again.

 

His vision whites out, and something solid collides with his side. This 'something' is probably the floor because it hits all of him at once. The hallway swims before his eyes, and he clutches the surface underneath him as best he can. For several seconds, there is nothing he can do but lie there and wait out the agony in his shoulder and brain, as well as the overwhelming dizziness. He barely even remembers that he's not alone.

 

“Kriff, Nine. What did you do?”

 

“I didn't do nothing. He swung at me first and then he just collapsed.”

 

“Nevermind. Go get Cap, will yah.”

 

But the sound of more footsteps making their way downstairs arrive before anyone can go anywhere.

 

“Cap, I told you,” the man argues, his voice sending blaster bolts through Kylo's head, “I told you we should have airlocked this guy. I told you!”

 

“Move,” this new person says. “Let Doc and I handle this.”

 

Somewhere from down the hall the voice of the medical droid pipes up, saying something Kylo can't distinguish. Someone pacifies it with a few words.

 

A new face comes into Kylo's line of sight, another woman kneeling down by his side. Lots of tightly coiled hair, black with streaks of white drawn back into a bun. When she speaks it's in a deep, calm voice. “Matt. Hey, easy now. You're all right. My name is Adilet. I'm the captain of this ship.”

 

Kylo hoists himself up only to fall back down again. The walls spins and his head protests at the sudden movement.

 

Blast, it  _ hurts. _

 

“You've sustained an injury to your head,” the woman with the blaster says. “Confusion, dizziness and nausea are all normal symptoms of a concussion. You should rest.”

 

“Ok, big guy.” The Captain reaches out for his arm. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed.”

 

Kylo slaps her hand away, but it's more of a uncommitted flapping of his arm in her general direction. “Unhand me,” he slurs more than snarls. Despite how much his body just seems to want to lie back down, he manages to get himself into a sitting position against the bulkhead.

 

Scowling Guy barks a laugh. “Watch out. We got a live one here.” His face falls flat at the look the women gives him. The captain turns her attention back to Kylo.

 

“That is fine. We'll just sit here until you feel like you can walk by yourself.” She plants herself back against the opposite wall, resting her elbows on her knees and lacing her fingers together, her steady gaze on Kylo. The other two remain standing on either sides of her, like guards. “I would like to speak to you anyway, and right here is as good as any place.”

 

It's not a good feeling, having someone standing over him. Kylo's height always has him looking down on people and his mask provides a comfortable steel barrier against their stares. Captain Adilet has put herself at his level, and now Kylo finds himself at the uneasy position of having to meet her eyes. The place at his hip, where his lightsaber used to hang, feels too light, too empty, and he notes that the clothes he wears, while they cover most of his body, are flimsy compared to the layers of protection he's used to.

 

He looks from the worn boots adorning the Captain's feet, to the grease-blackened hands of Scowling Guy to the the tear in the shirtsleeve of the woman with the blaster. They are civilians. Kylo remembers civilians. Generally harmless, non-Force sensitive people. He should be able to handle those. Hell, he used to be one himself once.

 

Kylo probes, tentatively this time, and finds in the place of the Force only a surface like broken glass to brush against. Nausea wells up in his stomach and he has the urge to put his face between his knees and hurl. Of all things, this shouldn't be happening. This should be easy.

 

“What did you do to me?” he demands.

 

“As I said, you've suffered a concussion,” the woman with the blaster responds. “Nothing to do about that but to rest, mostly. A serious blaster hit to your left kidney, so you only got one now. It's nothing you can't live without. I could even grow you a new one if you hang around. Hypothermia. Don't worry, I saved all your toes. Slight dehydration. You were nearly dead from hypovolemia, that's blood loss, when we found you. Judging from your color alone I still think you could do with another transfusion, but you'll live to see another day without it. Some bumps and bruises.” She counts off his injuries on her fingers while listing them in rapid succession. “Let’s see. Multiple lacerations, all of which have strangely enough been cauterised. I would like to see the weapon that did that, by the way. Most of these aren't a problem. That one however,” she pauses and gestures towards Kylo's shoulder, “is a bit of a mess. I'm not a neurological specialist so that one's beyond my expertise. I did my best to save the arm, but you won't be juggling stun batons any time soon. Your face on the other hand I've mostly fixed.” She raises her hand palm down and wiggles it, a slight grimace crossing her mouth. “-ish. That said, if you need your arm fully functioning again you'll have to go to a medicenter where they are equipped to deal with that kind of injury, and since you don't have any ID other than the 'Matt, First Order Radar Technician' tag we found on your vest there aren't many facilities in our vicinity right now that are willing to take you in. Call us prejudiced, but that's what happens when the organisation you work for blows up an entire solar system.” She finishes with a shrug.

 

“Lucky for you we've dealt with First Order deserters before,” Captain Adilet says. Scowling Guy makes an a small huff. “What I would like to know is are you going to be a problem to me and my crew?” the Captain continues.

 

Kylo blinks. His mind moves past the subject of being called 'Matt the Radar Technician' straight to the condition of his arm. It's mostly numb, slightly tingling at the fingertips, but it also feels heavy and unwieldy as he tries to move it. Nothing happens.. He needs his right arm. He wields his saber, (the saber which he has incidentally lost) with both hands, but the right one is the dominant one.

 

Then there's the fact that he's blocked from the Force. Kylo tries to think, to remember if there's anything in his training that spoke of such a thing, but if there is, it slip through his mind like water between his fingers. The mere idea of going without the Force is worse than the fact that he's without a weapon.

 

“N-no medicenters,” Kylo gruffs, and is horrified to find himself stuttering.

 

The two women share a glance, and the one with the blaster, which the Captain referred to as Doc, sits down on her haunches. Scowling Guy remains standing, his arms crossed in front as he, well,  _ scowls _ down at Kylo.

 

“Matt, do you remember what happened to you before you woke up here?”

 

Starkiller, scavenger, traitor, father....  _ Don't. _

 

When he doesn't reply the Captain speaks. “We found your shuttle floating in empty space, sending out emergency signals. I'm afraid the people you were with didn't make it. It looked as though you'd been betrayed.” She waits long enough before speaking again for Kylo to feel as if he needs to say something.

 

“I didn't know them.” He clears his throat. “Very well,” he adds after a short pause.

 

The Captain stares at him with sharp eyes. She can't be Force sensitive, Kylo thinks, but there's a familiarity in her gaze that reminds him of the way General Leia Organa used to look at him when he was a teenager, like there's deduction happening behind them that cuts through the core of what little he is saying. There's something else too, in the arch of her brow, the shape of her nose and the jut of her jawline, that Kylo can't quite pin down. Captain Adilet nods.

 

“This is Doctor Mana Maer and you've already shook hands with our loadmaster and self appointed security detail.” She gestures to each of her crew in turn. “Don't worry about Nine here. He hates everyone equally.” Scowling Guy, or Nine, though he keeps glowering at Kylo, rolls his eyes.

 

“You're on my ship,” the Captain says. “This is The Halcyon.”

 

“Am I a prisoner?” Kylo asks.

 

She shakes her head. “Believe me, I have more than enough reason to resent the First Order, but this is a cargo-freighter and we're not in the business of capturing refugees for the Republic. Or what's left of it anyhow,” she adds pointedly. “We can let you off when we hit dirt. That'll be in a day and a half. We have very little time to go off-route. Though I don't think Doc here would recommend leaving, considering the state you're in.”

 

Kylo clenches his jaw and looks to the stairway. Because he hates himself apparently, he brushes the malevolent, razor sharp surface where he normally finds the Force. Needles prick at his temples, and the lights in the ceiling flares, but none of the people around him seems to notice. He's without the Force, without a weapon, without the use of his arm, and probably sick.

 

Captain Adilet leans forward and eyes him sharply. “I don't know what's going through that brain of yours, Matt, but I give you my word that no one on this ship, neither me nor my crew, will cause you any trouble. That is unless you start trouble first. You harm anyone, and you are going to have a hot date with the airlock. Are we clear? We're just a small team, and we don't want any funny business. Especially not with the First Order.”

 

At this point the light coming from above has become a painful glare in Kylo's eyes, and he can't help but groan as it causes his head to throb. His hand comes up to his face. Again he wants to throw up.

 

“We should get him somewhere he can sleep,” he hears Doctor Maer say through the stabs of pain. “Ok, Matt. There's a nice, dark room for you just around the corner. No prison cells, I promise. You can even plot your escape after I've administered some pretty awesome painkillers, if I should say so myself. How does that sound?”

 

And ok, he's feeling fairly shitty as of right now, and a dark room sounds like kriffing paradise. Getting the hell out of dodge can wait. Kylo doesn't let anyone help as he staggers to his feet with considerable effort. Doctor Maer leads him to a door across from the one he'd previously seen her leave. He accepts two pills for the pain. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice says he shouldn't trust a complete stranger, but fuck it. He's so sick of pain.

 

The doctor doesn't leave Kylo alone until she has checked his bandages, and he's just too exhausted to fend her off. She settles for making sure nothing is bleeding, all the while complaining about the possibility of ripped open wounds and patients who should not be out of bed. Apparently they don't have a bacta tank on the ship. He listens with half an ear as she prattles on about being just across the corridor and if he needs anything just holler, oh, and there's a fresher in the corner, and she'll leave a bottle of water on the little table by the cot,  _ and _ she'll bring him a meal once he wakes up. And, and,  _ and…. _

 

Then, thankfully, the doctor leaves, door swishing closed behind her. Kylo lies down on the bed. Thin mattress. Thin pillow. Warm blanket. He waits until the aches in his body ebb away into the cool air in the room, and then sinks into dark, blissful sleep.

  
  


When Kylo wakes hours later, his first thought is; he is out. He is  _ out! _

 

_ Fuck. _ He's out.

 

He turns his head over the side of the cot and dry heaves. No, no, no, this can't be happening. He's an idiot and now he's gone and turned himself into a defector, a traitor of the worst kind to the Supreme Leader, the Knights of Ren and the First Order. He has to go back. He  _ needs _ to go back. The punishment will be excruciating, but it'll be nothing against what awaits him if he continues to stay away. Kylo sits up on the bed, drawing the fingers of his left arm through his hair. He pulls at it until it hurts.

 

What then? He has weakness inside himself and the task of proving his worth to the Supreme Leader will be ten times as hard as it was before. Leaving wasn't just a mistake, it's a kriffing nightmare. If he's to go back it needs to be without the doubts that have been eating at him. He has to be remade in the dark, as sure in his convictions as the day when he first came to Supreme Leader Snoke.

 

“Grandfather, help me.”

 

Kylo startles to find the response so immediate.

 

“What do you need?”

 

He raises his face to the room. Just like on Starkiller, there's no one to see, but the presence he'd felt is there, as tangible as his own mind. Stopping a pathetic sob of relief from leaving his mouth, Kylo lets himself believe.

 

“Show me again the power of the darkness.”

 

The pause that follows lasts for so long that for a second he fears it was all just a trick of the mind after all. The voice that led him off of Starkiller is not real.

 

“Excuse me?” is the eventual response.

 

“Forgive me.” Kylo screw his face up at the admission, hiding his shame. There's a reason he always did his confessions with the mask on. “I feel it again. The call to the light.”

 

Getting out of the bed, he winces as his injuries are jostled, and starts to pace the length of the small room in sheer agitation. “Show me the power of the darkness and I'll let nothing stand in our way.”

 

“I'm afraid I can't do that.”

 

Kylo stops, his heart thudding against his ribs. What? “But you must,” Kylo says with a hint of growing terror in his voice.

 

“Why are you asking this of me?”

 

“Why won't you help me?”

 

“And lead you back into the dragon’s lair?” the ghost says. “You know, flying a shuttle is no easy feat without a corporeal body. I didn't do all that for nothing. You said you were getting out. What changed?”

 

What changed? Darth Vader came to guide him away from his own terrible mistakes. “The Supreme Leader relies on me, but I can't do his bidding with the light always in the back of my head. I'm weak. The light, it's calling to me. Sometimes it's all I hear.” Kylo's voice grows increasingly louder as he talks. Doctor Maer spoke of hollering, but the bulkhead is solid and no sounds can be heard from outside the room.

 

“Yes, the light has a tendency to do that,” the ghost says with an air of long suffering resignation.

 

For the first time in as long as he can remember, Kylo pleads. “I thought I could get rid of it, but it keeps coming back. I'm failing. No matter what I do, it always comes back.”

 

“Yes, hello! That might actually at least been partially me all along,” the ghost says. “Formerly known as Darth Vader? Dark Lord turned back to the light right before he died? I've been trying to get through to you for a long time.”

 

A buzzing sound forms in Kylo's ears, shutting all else out. Is this a joke? After everything, Darth Vader won't help him? Staring at the wall in front of him, Kylo's vision narrows until the edges are thick black, forming a tunnel where he can see the room like he's looking at it through the wrong end of a spying-glass. The words of the ghost mix with the buzzing and the resulting noise grows into a klaxon that echoes in his mind.

 

His fist meets the wall.

 

Kylo draws his hand back, his head ringing, and he strikes again. What has he made of himself?

 

Again.

 

If he's not powerful he's useless. Without the guidance of the Supreme Leader he's nothing.

 

Again.

 

Worthless, worthless,  _ worthless _ .

 

“Hey,  _ hey! _ Stop that.” The voice barely cuts through the vortex in his mind, so easy to ignore. “You're going to hurt yourself. Ben!”

 

Kylo whirls on the empty room. “DON'T CALL ME THAT NAME!”

 

He stands panting, facing the single door, and for several seconds the following silence is so oppressive he thinks, for the second time since he woke, that he has lost it. He's shouting at nothing.

 

“Your hand,” the ghost says.

 

Blood runs from the knuckles of Kylo's good hand, small patches of skin hanging loose over two of them. The hand shakes, and something inside has gone crooked. Fractured. The dull pain barely registers. Kylo lets out a hollow huff.

 

How's he going to piss on his own now?

 

“Sit down,” the ghost says, and Kylo obediently arranges himself on the bed, feet flat besides one another, and his broken hand on his thigh. His ears still rings. Invisible fingers wrap around the damaged hand, and a slow warmth envelops it. The skin knits itself together and the bones reset with a little painless pop.

 

“There you go.” The voice is dark but calming somehow, an echo of something Kylo has long forgotten. He thinks about his saber hand, useless and limp at his side, and the sharp barrier between him and the Force.

 

“Bones and muscles I know,” the ghost says, answering his thoughts. “Nerves however were always a pain in the ass to heal. I never could get the hang of it. And I don't know why you can't reach the Force. Concussions can do odd things to people like us. I knew a girl who spent months levitating nothing but pebbles, and no one could figure out why. No, I can't heal you. So much for great power, huh.”

 

That is just fucking inconvenient. Kylo shuts his eyes to the light, and takes several deep breaths.

 

“You tried to turn me to the light,” he says. In his ears his tone is muffled, as if coming through the wall across from him.

 

“I nudged. In fact, most of what you've been feeling is purely you.”

 

Kylo turns his hand in his lap, the skin not broken for a full minute before being healed. He'd spent so many hours in front of that hollowed out, broken and burned helmet, in the hopes that it would one day speak to him again. Now that said hopes have been fulfilled, he finds the things he's being told only fill him with dread.

 

“You said we'd never spoken before,” Kylo says. “You told me on Starkiller Base we'd never spoken.”

 

Ben Organa-Solo the boy had had frightening visions and premonitions. A shadow would stand by the end of the his bed and whisper words he didn't want to hear, that he was being lied to, that the truth was being kept from him. It wasn't easy for a child to understand why Darth Vader would come to him and say such things about his own family, but Ben had been a foolish kid. Before he embraced the identity of Kylo Ren that boy had been afraid even of his own thoughts.

 

It certainly doesn't seem right that this ghost should be the same spirit that came to Kylo back then. This being that talks very much like any other person, who bargains to keep Kylo alive and tells stupid jokes about shuttles landing ‘happily’ when he's buzzy running for his life. But this is his grandfather's ghost. Somehow Kylo knows that, just as he can feel the Force, but not touch it. He didn't want to see it on Starkiller, but right here and now he can't deny it.

 

“We never did speak,” the ghost tells him. “I tried to get through, but you weren't listening, or, I suspect, something or someone were blocking me.”

 

“Blocking you? Who?”

 

“Same person who pretended to be me. Palpatine, snake edition. Your former master, Snoke.”

 

Kylo flinches. He's never heard anyone speak of the Supreme Leader with such derision. A fluttering of nerves runs through him at the harsh words, as if his master is right there to hear it. The controlled rage that so often rolls off the Supreme Leader in waves comes to mind. Kylo shivers.

 

It doesn't fit. He can't wrap his mind around the idea that the same person who always encouraged him to reach out to find Darth Vader's spirit would be the one who also kept him from communicating with him. If so there must be a reason for it. The Supreme Leader is, -

 

“Is wise,” his grandfather supplies. “Yes, you've said as much already. He certainly doesn't have cauliflowers for brains, that for sure.”

 

“You're lying.”

 

The ghost is taken aback. “Am I?”

 

“I am Supreme Leader's greatest asset. I'm destined to -”

 

“Rule the galaxy and all the sentient species that live within its realms. That's how it goes isn't it? You need to save the lowly peasants from themselves lest they'd destroy themselves with too much free will. Only things never seem to turn out the way you expect them to, do they? Snoke's using you, and you know it.”

 

An eerie chill runs down Kylo's spine to hear Han Solo's words echoed by Darth Vader's ghost.

 

“I wish you'd call me Anakin,” the ghost sighs. “The truth is, the Supreme Leader is holding you back. He's got you on a tight leash even now. I'm certain he’s found some way to keep you trapped even after you pulled this vanishing act.”

 

“How would you know?” Kylo demands, and some part of him regrets the question as it comes out of his mouth; he might get an answer. “The Supreme Leader never lied to me.”

 

“I can show you.”

 

A light pressure falls on Kylo's temples, warm like the healing touch to his broken hand earlier. It's strange, but not unpleasant, the feeling of almost palpable fingers. At first that's all it is, then Kylo flinches as something in the back of his skull reacts. He hisses, because whatever it is it moves. A worm buried deep into the gray matter of his brain. He cringes as the alien thing writhes. The touch at his temples remains steady, but the worm seems to grow, and with it Kylo's head starts to ache. Not the piercing pain of when he tried to use the Force, but a swelling pressure that quickly turns from uncomfortable to unbearable. Kylo bites back a gasp, his face screwed up in a grimace. His mind is a rope in a tug of war, and the threads are breaking apart one by one right in the middle. Then, just as he thinks he can't take it any longer, it snaps.

 

Popped like an overripe fruit, and out it blooms, relief so staggering it's like his insides have suddenly grown too big for the shell of his body. It pushes the dread and conflict within him up against the edges of Kylo's mind until there's nowhere else for it to go but out. His eyes and mouth open wide with a shocked exhale. Just like that, he lets his head fall back and with the all encompassing sensation that floods his chest he starts laughing.

 

“Oh....” The ghost sounds spooked. “Well kriffing hell.”

 

Kylo guffaws. A spooked ghost! That is  _ hilarious. _

 

He can't breathe from laughing. Careening sideways onto the bed, Kylo clutches his stomach. He can't stop. This is ridiculous. Why can't he stop?

 

The kriff was that?

 

“That was your leash,” the ghost answers, and Kylo gets the image of Darth Vader, all in black, holding a length of chain with a collar at the end, and it sends him into another bout of uncontrollable cackling.

 

What's kriffing wrong with him?

 

And there it is again, that strange connection he had on Starkiller before the ghost had numbed his pain. A deep, thrumming heartbeat, that coils around his awareness, confused but curious.

 

The scavenger.

 

For a brief moment it's like she's right there, standing in the room with her luminous halo around her. He could just reach out and, -

 

“I didn't expect the effect to be this potent,” the ghost says, expelling the sense of her presence from Kylo's head. “How do you feel?”

 

Kylo blinks, an afterimage of the girl still shining in his mind. It's a difficult thing to do, but he manages to press out a reply in between desperate breaths. “Awful.”

 

This is  _ amazing _ . He is  _ flying _ .

 

And there he goes again, giggling hysterically, like some deranged fool.

 

A brief touch presses to Kylo's forehead, and with it goes the manic mood, gone just as quickly as it came. But the euphoria leaves an aftertaste and it remains so great it's as if he's floating. Kylo's laughter trails off into coughing.

 

“What did you do?” He’s panting, but finally able to string more than two words together again.

 

“I removed Snoke's own bastardized version of a Force bond. An insidious, but clever thing really. A one way connection between the two of you.”

 

“Removed what? Snoke never, -”

 

“Calling him Snoke now are we? Not Supreme Leader? I'm afraid he did. Now the rest is up to you, and you alone.”

 

Kylo gets up from the bed, his movements suddenly as awkward as the time in his youth when he'd gone through a considerable growth spurt. He'd been more of a menace to himself with a lightsaber than he'd been to others during that period. Now, every part of his body just feels so feathery light, even the injured arm at his side, that it seems as if just a simple push of the bed could send him rocketing head first into the opposite bulkhead.

 

“Tell me something, how long have you had the headaches?” Anakin asks.

 

“Since I woke up,” Kylo answers.

 

“No, I'm not talking about the concussion. The headaches. How long have you had them?

 

“What are you kriffing talking about? What headaches?”

 

“I see.”

 

“See what?” Kylo demands, but Anakin stays silent for a while. Even though he's still very much affected by the previous euphoria, Kylo is annoyed to learn out of all the traits the dead man could have passed on to General Leia Organa, caginess is one of them.

 

“I suspect the reason you don't know you've been in pain is because it's been coming on for a very long time. Possibly ever since you were an infant.”

 

Kylo scoffs. Can death cause one to catch gibberish? Because what the ghost is saying is too far fetched. He didn't even know who Snoke was back then.

 

“How do you feel now?” Anakin asks.

 

Kylo contemplates the lightness of his head and how the gray durasteel walls suddenly seem to swim with color.

 

“High,” he gruffs.

 

“I can imagine. It won't last. When your mind settles down, things will start to look different.”

 

“Different how?”

 

“We'll just have to wait and see.”

 

Damn him. Why did Kylo ever think his grandfather would have all the answers?


	3. Things that were a pain in the ass, and things that will definitely become a pain in the ass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rey speaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a lot for the comments and kudos on the first two chapters. I am just so happy that people seem to like this story. Please keep sending your comments my way. I love reading them!
> 
> The beta reader for this chapter is TehanuFromEarthsea :)

For some reason Anakin has gotten it into his head that Kylo should go 'home', wherever the hell that is. 'Home' is a cloud of dusty matter floating around in the empty space where the Hosnian System used to be. 'Home' is a smugglers’ route across the galaxy that changes every few years. 'Home' is a strangled existence of unquestioningly following the Jedi code. But Anakin’s intention is clear: he means for Kylo to stand in front of General Leia Organa once again. Which incidentally also means finding his way to the Resistance, where he would without a doubt get lynched. As of right now Kylo doesn't know which of the two would be worse.

 

The word 'family' comes up again, along with the line 'make things right,' and also 'redemption,' like it's suppose to mean something. As if Kylo didn't have good reasons to leave all that behind in the first place. He might not technically be in the First Order anymore, that doesn't mean he intends to join the Resistance. But Anakin is insistent. There's something about the way he speaks of General Organa, like he expects Kylo to see reason where there's none. Kylo finds himself snapping more often at the ghost the longer the conversation goes on.

 

Then Anakin has to open his kriffing undead mouth about Han Solo and gets about half way into some excruciating speech about knowing what it's like to lose a parent and no.

 

_No._

 

Kylo's not having _that_ . He doesn't want anything to do with _that_.

 

“Will you shut up,” he snaps, dragging his hand across his forehead. This is not how he imagined this would go. Never in his life as Kylo Ren did he think his grandfather would make his predicament worse. If only Anakin would just leave.

 

To his surprise the ghost does. In the frustration-filled quiet that falls between them Anakin simply evaporates. Kylo is glad. If his grandfather hasn't come to show him the power of the darkness, then he doesn't understand why he has come at all. Clearly, brainwashing is still a thing in the afterlife.

 

If he is going to find his way back to the First Order, to Sno– Supreme Leader Snoke's side he needs to be whole. Not this mess on the brink of... _that_. He's more torn than ever.

 

But in Anakin's absence Kylo's mind is free to wander, and doubt about going back creeps in like some terrible unbidden guest. The thoughts he had while he lay in the snow on Starkiller Base return, but instead of granting him peace they now make his palms sweat, and a cold acidic feeling fills his chest.

 

The Supreme Leader wouldn't.

 

Would he?

 

Not to Kylo Ren, no.

 

Certainly not.

 

Kylo accesses the adjoining 'fresher to make use of the facilities. A small mirror hangs over the sink, and in it he gets a good look at the extent of the damage across his face and neck. A layer of gelled bacta covers the wound that runs from underneath the neckline of his shirt diagonally all the way up to his hairline.

 

Good Maker above, his hair's a disaster.

 

Greasy, tangled locks hang in his eyes, flat and lifeless. Kylo looks around for something, anything and finds only hand soap. That won't do. He runs his hand through his hair, gathering it away from his eyes and roughing it up to make some semblance of volume, but with very little luck.

 

Taking a leak turns into a humbling experience; he has to actually think about how to handle himself without making a mess. An adult and he has to go through potty training all over again. His right arm just hangs there, the wrist bending at an awkward angle. Kriff.

 

_Kriff._

 

That nasty little savage. He should have kicked her over that edge when he had the chance.

 

Only he wouldn't have.

 

There is _something..._

 

The effect of what Anakin has done to him has left Kylo in a funny way. The strange high from earlier has faded, replaced by an even stranger notion of everything seeming just a little bit tilted. Like some filter has been pulled over the world like they do in the holovids. Or maybe lifted is the right word. He feels like he's been untethered, like every molecule inside him is vibrating on a higher frequency than the rest of the universe around him and it might cause him to shake apart at any moment. He has this savage urge to run, not necessarily from anything, just run. Or fight. The same way he felt when he was a boy and sitting still by the dinner table long enough to eat everything on his plate was a war against his jittery limbs. The shared glints in his parents' eyes when –

 

Anyway.

 

So this _something_ that is going on with him, Kylo suspects, is the Scavenger. He saw her earlier, felt her presence. In the void left behind by whatever Anakin lifted from Kylo's mind, some small insignificant remnant of his short exchanges with her have bloomed fully into existence. It's just _her_. It tickles his mind as he rinses his hand under the tap. Kylo stops what he’s doing in the middle of drying off and stares blindly into the rusted bulkhead in front of him.

 

He picks at the connection, but it wavers and flickers and is just all around unstable. Glimpses of places and people, sounds and smell, but nothing distinct enough to make out properly. In a past life, he used to have impressions of his family's whereabouts and their state of minds, sometimes vague, sometimes stronger. Yet this one is more distinct than any other bond he's had before. A Force bond, and _she's_ on the other end of it. How did that happen? Emotions sidle through, confusion, calm, but too often the emotion is _that._ Most of all Kylo senses _that._

 

As mesmerizing as this new connection is he'd rather not have _that_. No. Her feelings are raw, and earnest and dangerously compelling. He should cut her off, stop this, but she has literally taken root in his brain. Somehow he can't touch the Force, but these things from her mind are thrust upon him regardless. It's like he can only have what it decides to give him and he can't even say no to them.

 

The distraction from his current situation comes in the form of Doctor Maer and Nine. True to her word, the doctor brings Kylo a meal. For all her talk about him hollering if he needed something, she doesn't mention anything about yelling or uncontrollable laughter coming from his room. If she heard she has the good grace not to mention it.

 

They give Kylo what's left of his old clothes. But there must have been some mistake because for one thing he would have remembered it if he ever wore something that brightly orange. The tool vest and the gray jumpsuit is a mystery to him until he sees the name tag.

 

_‘Matt, First Order Radar Technician.’_

 

Something tells him Anakin has everything to do with this. Kylo's pants and other undergarments are all there too, and they're all in tatters. The doctor had to cut him out of them to get to his injuries.

 

Right.

 

The food is some sort of synthesized porridge that actually doesn't taste as dull as Kylo expected. It's sweet, but not too sweet, with an underlying taste of real oats and cinnamon, thought the slimy texture with the occasional lumps leaves much to be desired. He forces down what he can manage, fumbling only a little with the spoon in his left hand. Doctor Maer and Nine leave Kylo alone as he eats, but when he pushes his bowl away, half finished, she takes it as her cue to start fussing. Or as she calls it, 'checking his injuries.' Either way it means Kylo has to tolerate getting poked and prodded.

 

Civilians. Again, remember those? He can endure this.

 

Nine hovers with his arms crossed nearby, that seemingly permanent scowl planted on his face.

 

“You don't have to be here,” doctor Maer tells him. “What's Matt here gonna do? He's unarmed.”

 

Nine rolls his eyes as she chortles at her own joke, but the corner of his mouth twists upwards just a little like some involuntary tic.

 

Kylo bristles. So far only one out of the three people he's met on the Halcyon seem to think of him as anything but harmless. He would've told her he could crush her skull with his mind, but then again he gets the feeling she's the kind of person who would ask him to prove it. If he'd been able to do that he wouldn't still be on this ship along with these people.

 

Maer swipes a bioscanner over Kylo's torso and head. She lingers with the device around his temple until it makes a soft clicking sound, and then nods to herself.

 

When she unwraps the bandages around Kylo's midriff, it reveals a hideous wound. Some part of Kylo is shocked that he'd still been fighting after a hit like that, the other part is shaken by the thought of who had taken the shot. He knows the mark of a bowcaster by sight and that it takes a certain kind of betrayal to anger a Wookiee, but he never actually considered....

 

Even after....

 

But that's not important.

 

Doctor Maer works quick and methodically, getting the wounds cleaned, bacta’d and bandaged soon enough. She moves on to the slash that stretches across Kylo's cheek and shoulder, which means she has to get all up in his kriffing face.

 

Civilian. Remember? It's fine. He's _fine._

 

“You got lucky with this one,” she quips, and continues working as if Kylo's silence doesn't mean a thing. “The scar will hardly be noticeable once I'm done. Better if we'd gotten to you sooner. Maybe you'll even be prettier than before. I'm very good at what I do after all.”

 

At this point reacting to other people in the room has become tiresome, as if Kylo can't make the muscles in his face do what he needs them to do to at least seem normal. The lights irritates him. Everything's still so saturated, and Maer's voice seems to bounce of the walls in a strange way. He sometimes finds himself grappling for the meaning of her words, distracted by some strong sensory input or another.

 

Though he can't touch the Force, the energy he senses through it coming from Nine and Dr. Maer strikes a nerve. A sense of fading shock and a heavy, pressing gloom that affects Kylo more than he'd like to admit hangs fresh in the air around them. In the in between moments of Maer’s witty cleverness and Nine’s constant sullenness they both seen to fall into a mind-numbing melancholy.

 

Dr. Maer peals the strip of gauze off of Kylo's shoulder, biting the inside of her lip as she does so. Brachial Plex – something or other she calls it. The clinical words drop out of Kylo's brain as soon as they enter. But what he understands is this: Three of the major nerves that connect his arm to his spine have been fried right through, rendering it useless. They’ve been reconnected, but the damage has already been done. Apparently Kylo now also has a synthetic piece of artery just above his collarbone. Much of the terminology goes right over his head, but he knows from experience that the area is a good place to seriously maim or render an enemy incapable of fighting back.

 

The scavenger couldn't have made her rejection any clearer, or punished him more severely.

 

What he takes from the doctor's words is, one: he's kriffing lucky lightsabers cauterize, because otherwise he would have bled to death a lot faster. Two: healing his arm is going to be a kriffing nightmare. And three: the fact that the blasted thing is still attached to him is a kriffing miracle.

 

Doctor Maer pricks his fingertips with a needle, and though he can feel it, Kylo can't move much of his hand. His fingers flutter weakly when she asks him to move them, but the elbow and shoulder joints remains unresponsive when she tells him to push them upwards against the hands she places on his shoulders. He's going to need a specialist, he hears the doctor repeat, her voice muffled like it's coming from another room, or else the arm will never work the way it used to.

 

In other words, he'll be using his left hand to jerk off until further notice.

 

In the end the doctor produces a sling for Kylo's arm from somewhere in her office, then she gives him a new dose of pain medicine. Having done that, she hands him a glass of water and makes him drink until it's empty. Then, blissfully, she and Nine leave Kylo alone, but not until after she's given him solid instructions to get some rest, and informed him that Captain Adilet will come by to see him later.

 

Although Kylo sort of resents her for the order he doesn't have to be told twice. Once the door closes behind the two he sinks back onto the bed, closing his eyes to the glare that seems to fill the room despite the dim lights. He sleeps fitfully, and dreams of stepping out of the Millennium Falcon. Before him stands his mother, looking older and smaller and sadder than he can remember.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up seeing double. Only instead of seeing the same room twice he's seeing two different rooms once. Is he still dreaming? No. It's like his mind has developed a state of duality that gradually corrects itself as he blinks awake.

 

The Scavenger again. The connection sparks as if she's waking up as well. If she detects Kylo she doesn't show it. Some confusion comes through, as well as irritation, as if she feels him like some fly around her ears, but hasn't yet figured out it's him.

 

Kylo stiffens where he lies. What does he do? Their last encounter didn't exactly end victoriously on his part. She _denied_ him. To make things worse he now knows the extent of the state she left him in, his saber arm all mangled, and his mind damaged. He is in ruins because of her. If she were to realize he might not actually survive the chagrin.

 

As her mind clears from sleep, there are other impressions. Fabric against her left cheek, and a crick in her neck like she's been sleeping in an awkward position. Then there's the suggestion of a limp hand in hers. Kylo snags the identity of its owner; it's the traitorous stormtrooper lying lifeless on a medical bed.

 

The image from her evaporates as someone makes themselves known at Kylo's door. Captain Adilet enters. She greets him casually as if he's just another member of her crew. Just like earlier, spoken words seem to slip through Kylo's mind without making much of a mark. He barely has the sense to acknowledge Adilet's greeting.

 

What did Anakin do to him?

 

When the Captain speaks it's more or less about the same things she already told him when they caught him out in the hallway. He's not a prisoner, he's free to leave when they land, however, the doctor has requested that he be allowed to stay until she has made sure he won't fall into some ditch and die of his own injuries. Again Captain Adilet emphasizes that as long as he doesn't cause any trouble, they won't have any quarrels with him. Also, –

 

Kylo looks between the woman sitting across from him and the door. He can't remember her entering this room. He can't remember sitting down on the bed or the captain taking the chair. How long have they been talking?

 

“Matt?”

 

Kylo starts at the tone in her voice, but when he meets her eyes her expression is mild, inquiring.

 

“How are you doing?”

 

He tells her he's fine.

 

He is _fine._

 

The look she gives him is painfully familiar; there had been times in his childhood when his mother had –

 

_That's not important._

 

The Captain invites him to walk with her. The doctor has cleared him for walking. Well, that's something. She'd like to show him the ship and introduce the crew, which means Kylo has to interact with more people. People who will have unlimited viewing opportunities of his face now that he's without his mask. The idea of more human interaction nothing short of makes him want to willingly volunteer for the airlock, but truth be told dying in zero vacuum is exactly zero amount of fun, and besides, he's about to go stir crazy inside this little cabin.

 

_Get a grip you coward._

 

He can handle this. He can. For fuck sake, Kylo was raised among people, not on some planet devoid of sapient lifeforms and with only the flora for company.

 

Captain Adilet leads him past doctor Maer's infirmary, and up the set of stairs from last night. They go through a heavy-set durasteel door at the top of it and enter onto a catwalk that runs along the wall of a huge cargo hold. Containers, some big enough to store a rancor, occupy the room in tidy lines. Apart from the general sounds that permeate every part of any ship in motion it's awfully quiet in here. There's no people or other lifeforms that Kylo can detect, apart from a few that sleep in stasis inside their tightly locked cages for the trip.

 

Captain Adilet and he walk across the catwalk, and enter a second door on the other side. It leads to another set of stairs that end perpendicular into a hallway. To their right the corridor ends in spinning machinery. The room emits a deep thrumming sound, that manifests like a physical sensation in Kylo's chest, the heart of the ship greeting him. He has an instinctual urge to go down that way and get a closer look, cover his hands in grease, to figure out the components, learn how this ship works, but Captain Adilet walks off in the opposite direction.

 

They enter a mess hall. A long wooden table marks the middle of the room, mismatched chairs all around it. A small gathering of six people stand around a news holo to the side, Nine and doctor Maer among them. A scratching voice comes from the holo, deteriorated by the travel across lightyears.

 

Kylo falters. The feeling that had hung in the air between Maer and Nine earlier is thick in here, coming off the entire group in suffocating waves. The holo displays a cluster of planets that appears to be the Hosnian system, or what it used to be before it was destroyed.

 

It's like he's seeing that red beam split into five again, and feeling that earsplitting silence afterwards so strongly there was no way even a non Force sensitive should have been spared it. It should have brought anyone lesser to their knees, but somehow Kylo had been the only one struggling to stand.

 

And here it is; the aftermath. The open wound in the galaxy that won't let itself be erased for at least another dozen millenniums. Thriving planets that are suddenly gone along with all their life forms, do not just leave more vacuum in the places they used to be.

 

Leia Organa had spoken once and only once about the destruction of Alderaan in front of him. Just a boy, he'd had to sit in with her as she spoke to the senators. Her white-clad form had been silhouetted in the lights from the hovercam capturing her speech, her shadow falling on her son where he sat silent in his seat in the Senate pod. Han Solo had been too many lightyears away to take Ben off her hands. Her voice had been larger than life throughout the chamber as she argued for steps being taken to secure the galaxy's economical stability after the loss of a core planet such as Alderaan.

 

To her son, it had all been political drivel, as meaningful as the screeching of a Loth-Cat. But when Leia Organa's artificial halo faded as the hovercam turned to the next pod, her shoulders had sagged, and her head had lowered. Only then had all the things she didn't say become apparent to Ben. Those torn edges that was a constant part of her signature, that she seemed to share with only a select few others Ben had ever encountered. The holos of grandparents he had never met suddenly had a different meaning.

 

How does one build peace over open wounds?

 

“Don't tell him that.” Nine's voice booms over the news speaker. Captain Adilet is halfway across the room, but Kylo has taken root by the entrance of the mess.

 

“That guy doesn't give a shit about what's coming,” the loadmaster continues.

 

“You don't know that,” a woman sitting on a chair by Doctor Maer's side says. Her belly is swollen beneath her shirt, visibly pregnant.

 

“Don't I?” Nine retorts. “You think just because he's here he's suddenly cured of all that shit they put us through. I bet you my next ten salaries our friendly Radar Technician down in the crew quarters is freaking out about how he's going to get back to the First Order this very moment, to help them dominate the galaxy. That's what _I_ did. The only reason I even stood a chance is because there is no way back. You've been outside once, you're damaged goods. Nah, Matt wants to destroy us all. Trust me.”

 

Nine's last words drowns in the space Kylo is putting between himself and the mess. They echo in the hallway as he goes.

 

Hux and his weapons of mass destruction. Hux and his stormtrooper program. Trained from birth? How kriffing wonderful. Hux and his fucking pet projects leading Snoke and the entire First Order astray. From the moment Kylo had laid eyes on the poisonous rat he'd known the man was going to be a fucking menace. Raising soldiers. Brainwashing children. All but convinced the new galaxy could be built on lies. What the First Order needs are people who stand sure in their beliefs, not mindless puppets who can't take a dump without getting a clearance first. Didn't the failure with FN-2187 prove this? A soldier has to be willing, dedicated, or else they defect once they get a taste of freedom.

 

And the weapons?

 

Had Kylo been a fool thinking they'd never actually be used? Starkiller Base alone had been a monstrosity so powerful it rendered itself obsolete simply by existing. The simple threat of it would sink their enemies to their knees. Firing it was the mistake that had prompted resistance, the disaster that had ended Starkiller Base. And it was all because of Hux.

 

The weapons were never meant to be used.

 

Supreme Leader Snoke had promised.

 

Without a destination in mind, or a good knowledge of the layout of the ship, Kylo soon finds himself lost. He thought he'd been walking in the direction of the infirmary, but this place is unfamiliar. A door to his right hisses open as he comes to a halt, and a whiff of machinery oil and metal hits his nostrils. The room inside is overflowing with scrap parts and droids in varying states of disrepair. That's an M1A1 model in the corner with its top cap off, along with a WED Treadwell, and – Is that a KX security droid?

 

Without thinking Kylo steps inside.

 

Something hits the doorframe with a metallic clang as soon as he's through. A durasteel wrench clatters to the floor by Kylo's feet. He jolts, his one good shoulder drawn up to his ear, and he looks from the wrench to the room around him.

 

“This a-a-a-ain't n-n-no theater.” In the corner a lean fellow sits hunched over at a workbench. In front of him lies what looks like the exploded bowels of some gutted droid. His fingers are blackened by grease, and there’s a smear across his jaw where it looks as if he's scratched himself.

 

“Y-y-y-y,–” The man draws a deep breath. “You stay you m-m-m-make yourself u-useful.”

 

“What?” Kylo says.

 

“Did I stutter?” the fellow says dryly. He snaps his fingers in the direction of the M1A1 in the corner of his shop. “Now sh-shut up or p-p-piss of.” With that he turns his back to Kylo and goes back to his work with an air that says he's not to be trifled with.

 

Kylo considers the man, the wrench by his feet and the broken astro droid. He thinks of the empty cabin he had half a mind to go back to just a few seconds ago and the air of shock and unhappiness that surrounds the rest of the Halycon's crew. In here all that seems muted. Though this guy gives off the same emotions it's as if it's being overwritten by intense concentration, like some kind of meditation trance covering his surroundings like a blanket. Kylo picks up the wrench.

 

He gets as far as finding a low stool and sitting down before he remembers he only has one functioning hand. With an internal groan Kylo looks to the ceiling, some immense pang of humiliating defeat running through him. If only the scavenger had killed him cleanly.

 

A soft mechanical whir draws him out of this momentary deflation. A single robotic arm on wheels rolls up beside him. Its hand, (or head?) consists of an array of tools that it seems to be able to switch between in quick succession. It positions itself at his side as if to mimic his right arm.

 

Kylo looks over his shoulder. The stuttering fellow still has his back turned on him, working on putting together some small components with a screwdriver. Kylo cocks his head at the robotic arm. It makes a soft sound.

 

Oh, kriffing hell. It's worth a try.

 

Kylo has just gotten his fingers tangled with the wires of the broken droid when the door hisses open again and Nine sticks his scowling face through.

 

“Everything alright in here, Zapf?

 

“K-k-k-k,–” Deep breath. “Kriffing peachy.”

 

Apparently this is not an uncommon way to reply, cause Nine just nods and turns his frown towards Kylo. “Doc says you ought to rest.”

 

No shit. Kylo doesn't answer. He bites his tongue, wishing nothing more than to Force push the man out of the room. And thank the kriffing stars, Nine seems satisfied enough with his silence.

 

“Fine. Whatever. Don't say I didn't try.” And then the door slides shut behind him.

 

Kylo frowns. Apparently zero people on this ship think he's anything but harmless now.

 

At least he's being left alone.

 

The astro droid turns out to have a few fried circuits that need to be replaced, and a programming that prompts it to insult Kylo's personal hygiene every other minute in binary. After half a dozen of these comments Kylo disables its speech center, but that doesn't stop it from continuing to communicate its displeasure with him in code by blinking its main light. The nastiest insult, however, comes when it tries to electrocute him.

 

Kylo snaps his hand back, hissing at the sting. He curses from the shock of it and –

 

– there she is. The scavenger. The bond between them much more of a tangible thing than it had been moments ago, as if she felt him getting shocked. This time her presence brings a notion of awareness; she knows he's there.

 

He closes his eyes.

 

When he opens them it's like she's standing besides him. He's still there in the repair shop, the broken droid in front of him, and at the same time Kylo is somewhere else. Shadows are all there is of the room around her, but Kylo can make out the medical bed and the person in it. That's FN-2187, and she's holding his hand. She's looking down at the trooper, her face soft. The Force swirls all around her, light illuminating her skin until it shimmers in this strange mind space and lends itself to the man on the bed.

 

“You finally noticed I'm here,” she says.

 

It takes a second before Kylo realizes that yes, she is in fact talking to him. Of course she would know about their connection. _Of course_. Why wouldn't she? Little miss I-can-do-mind-tricks-after-no-Force-training-at-all. He shouldn't be surprised.

 

It grates on him how pointedly she's not asking questions about their connection; like she's already figured out that he understands as little of it as she does.

 

“What do you want, Ben?”

 

Kylo looks at her. It's a fleeting thing, but the bond tells him that's the only kriffing name she has for him. Her using it is not out of malice, but ignorance. Of course Kylo Ren has to be a non-entity to her. He never even said his rightful name out loud during their brief encounters. Yes, pull off your mask and show her your face, why don't you, but for the love of all that is kriffing holy do not introduce yourself. What is worse, it seems to have stuck; in her mind he's Ben and no one else, and there's only one person at the moment she could have gotten it from.

 

That's just Kylo's damn luck.

 

She squeezes FN's hand, her thumb running along his knuckles. The trooper doesn't look much worse for wear apart from being unconscious. If Kylo's memory serves him right he punched the guy before he made sure he wouldn't stand up again, but the trooper's face carries no trace of it. It occurs to Kylo that in here, where he and the scavenger are meeting, the bandages across his body are gone.

 

He pulls himself up to his full height.

 

“Wasting your time I see,” he comments. “He fought bravely enough, I guess, but you can't win a battle with heroism alone.”

 

The scavenger’s eyes shift from the hand in her own to straight ahead. “Did you come to trade petty insults or talk?”

 

“I'm saying you'd make more powerful friends somewhere else.”

 

“It's good to know what criteria you use for choosing your relations. I guess I should have known.”

 

“I'm being pragmatic. So should you.”

 

“You offering to teach me again?”

 

“No.” Fuck if he can teach anybody in his current condition. “You're going to have to come crawling. I might consider it then.”

 

She scoffs. “We're going to hold a memorial, for the fallen pilots as well as your father,” she says. “You're more than welcome to come along.”

 

Kylo stiffens. In his mind’s eye the unwelcome images of a mourning congregation form, faces he hasn't seen in years, the General at the forefront. He bites the inside of his lip until it stings. The hard set in her tone says that catching him off guard was her intention, but there's a part of it that's somehow genuine. Like she's counting on him taking the challenge. Kylo clenches his jaw.

 

“He can't give you anything of worth,” he says, turning the subject matter back to FN-2187. “He's a stormtrooper. They are raised to do one thing, and leading is not it.”

 

Burgeoning impatience flows from the girl, the slight roll of her eyes barely visible from Kylo's angle.

 

“He is kind to me,” she says. “That's enough.” Which means Kylo isn’t. This doesn't even make sense, he's been plenty kind to her. He _has._

 

“You're a fool,” Kylo tells her. “No one can offer you what I did. No one.”

 

“What about your uncle?”

 

Kriff. Oh kriff. She knows so much about him already. So this is what it's like to feel not just exposed, but also naked.

 

“He'll just hold you back,” Kylo snaps. “The way of the Jedi can only take you so far. Eventually you'll realize this. He’s a fraud.”

 

“So?” She delivers the one syllable flatly with an undercurrent of spite. While she doesn't deny his words, she doesn't seem to care about them even in the slightest. “I thought you just said you wouldn't teach me. What's it to you?”

 

“I don't understand you,” Kylo argues. “You could have power beyond belief. Planets would bow to you.” She has to see the reason in this. It's the only way to put the galaxy back in order.

 

“And become like you?” For the first time she turns to him, revealing barely contained disgust. There's anger so potent Kylo has to keep himself from taking a step back. She stares him right in the eyes. “How can I? Look at yourself.”

 

She takes a step towards him, the light around her growing as she comes closer, a blinding glare in a darkness, and Kylo finds himself caught in her sharp gaze. She's eye level with his chin and yet it's like she's looking down at him. The girl's mouth twists, and distaste forms on her lips as she delivers the words that cut deepest.

 

“You know, even after everything you've done, your mother still wants you back.”

 

There's a jolt of the Force, unrefined but strong, and Kylo's yanked back into his own reality. His head bounces back as if he's been physically shoved. The repair shop materializes around him.

 

There's a whir by Kylo's elbow. The little robot arm spins its screwdriver head up to look at him, like some confused animal questioning why he stopped in the middle of repairs.

 

A faint ringing in Kylo's ears and a throbbing in his temple signals the beginning of a headache.

 

He grabs the robot by the neck and wrenches it off its wheels. It falls on its side with a clatter. The damaged M1A1 comes next and it crashes to the ground with the force of his blow.

 

“Hey!”

 

It's only by the grace of Kylo's injuries that Zapf isn't pulled into a Force choke right there and then. The stab to his blasted out brain stops him short in drawing on his powers, even before he can raise his arm.

 

Zapf slams his screwdriver onto the workbench and trots over, his knobbly hands clenched into fists. “S-s-son of a Banta.” The man looks from the robotic arm to the upturned droid, his eyebrows raised in outrage. “Who's the degenerate who taught you your m-manners, laserb-b-brain?” He picks up the robot, its little head spinning and whirling, and places it on its wheels again. Then Zaph looks at the droid. “You s-s-sure fixed that o-o-one u-u-up n-nicely,” he says, gesturing with an upturned palm and glaring at Kylo.

 

It's been so long since anyone has reacted with anything but timidity or flat out submission to Kylo's outbursts that his mind draws a blank. Here he stands, strings cut on all sides, a scream trapped in his chest, and this punk, this fucking nobody is staring him down like he's just some difficult child. His throat aches, and there's a terrible thing welling up inside of him, and all he can do is watch as the anger on Zapf's face slowly morphs into something like surprised concern.

 

Kylo wishes he had his lightsaber, he wishes he had the use of the Force and his arm, but more than anything Kylo wishes he still had his mask.

 

_Your mother still wants you back._

 

_Come home. We miss you._

 

Light fucking dammit.

 

Kylo leaves.


	4. Both eyes open - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo's going back to the First Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, this took a while, but it's here now. The next chapter shouldn't be too far behind. Please check the end notes for a minor additional warning specifically for this chapter and the next.
> 
> Thank's to Applesith and TehanuFromEarthsea! :)

“This is crap.”

“No one hits a target on their first try, Ben. The ones who do just get lucky.”

“I don't get why I have to do this. I have the Force.”

“And what are you going to do when the Force fails you?”

“The Force doesn't fail, Dad. It just there. It's always there. I don't need a blaster.”

“You think your uncle fought battles by levitating pebbles at his enemies when I first met him? No, that's right. Luke used blasters like the rest of us lowly mortals. And he didn't stop using them just because he figured out how to do magic. Has he told you yet there are ways to cut you off from the Force?

“No?”

“Well, there are, and there's no way my kid's not going to be able to defend himself if that happens. Now concentrate. I'm trying to teach you something important here. Now, I want you to do everything you just did, only this time use your left hand.”

* * *

Kylo Ren hasn't had a nightmare in years. His sleep pattern may not be ideal, but it's usually been undisturbed by pesky night visions. Until now. He can't count how many times he startles awake from some black masked menace that won't leave his dreams well alone. When the chrono above the door shows morning Kylo has made up his mind; he's going back to the First Order. He'll take what punishment awaits him, because whatever it will be, it can't be worse than this. The torture will burn the uncertainty clean of his bones. If only just for now.

Anakin remains absent, and Kylo doesn't call for him. The ghost will have other ideas, and he has to be free of distraction. The Frist Order has the medicine he needs, and Snoke may have mercy on him and cure his severed connection to the Force. He's going back. It's better this way.

Just like the day before, doctor Maer comes to the cabin that’s been his for the last two nights. There’s no Nine in tow this time around.

“We'll be landing in a few hours,” she says, holding the bio-scanner to his head. “Cap said you didn't say whether you'd be staying or not.”

Kylo makes a noncommittal sound to the expectant look she gives him. The bio-scanner chirps and she frowns. She snaps it shut and puts it down with more force than necessary.

“Look, Matt. You literally have nothing but the clothes on your back, and they're not even yours. The people on Karideph aren't kind to vagrants. You need medicine and you need rest. At least stay on until the next planet. Gandle is in the middle of spring season in the northern hemisphere, and you'll have better opportunities creating a life there.”

Her idealism, while admirable, is a mistake. Compassion only costs in the long run, and Kylo won’t hang around to watch her learn it the hard way.

“You've been very generous,” Kylo tells her in a flat tone, looking at a spot on the wall above her shoulder.

She sigh, shaking her head, and leaves him alone.

* * *

Within half an hour alone inside the little cabin, Kylo is ready to attempt walking on the bulkhead out of sheer boredom. Staring at walls doesn’t do much to prevent him from going stir crazy. His wounds aches, even with the medicine he’s taken for the pain, and the slash across his neck and face itches. He’s about to jump out of his skin then his eyes fall on the tattered clothes thrown into a corner, that Maer and Nine left behind the day before.

Kylo himself usually kept nothing but his lightsaber on his person, but Matt the radar technician's pockets are filled to the brim. In addition to a standard set of repair tools, Kylo finds what appears to be half a squashed and dried up muffin, (who puts leftovers in their pockets?) a set of worn and dirty glasses, (no one wears those these days) some _used_ paper tissue (disgusting), and a card. Kylo stares at the folded up thing. How does a First Order maintenance guy come by something as rare as writing paper? On the front 'After the rain' is written in thick curvy letters, and when Kylo opens it a rainbow pops up from between the pages. The lines goes on, but he doesn't read what follows. In the top right corner someone has scribbled 'Sorry I killed your son,' a colon and a right bending bracket, then '- Kylo'.

He flushes the crumpled up remains of it down the toilet.

* * *

Meditation doesn’t come as easily as it usually does. His concentration wavers and otherwise insignificant things like the hum of the Halcyon or the occasional flicker of the lights keep snapping him out of his trance. Eventually Kylo reaches a semi state of equilibrium with his rattled mind. Focusing on the deepening of his breaths and the slowing of his heart rate, he let’s his thoughts drift.

Something _writhes_ in the back of his skull.

Sucking air in through his teeth, Kylo claps his left hand to the nape of his neck. Unnerved, he looks at his palm, expecting to find something smeared across it. Revolt makes a shiver run down his back. The room seems smaller than it did moments ago.

What was that?

He presses his thumb and forefinger to his eyelids, willing the vile image of worms in his brain away, and sees –

_– boot clad feet at the edge of a steep fall, the bottom shrouded in shadows. The floor tilts to the side, because that's how the Star Destroyer crashed into the sand. Her heart beats faster at the thought of going down into that darkness, but there's no other way to know for sure. She has to._

Kylo shakes his head. Those memories are not his own, and if they’re not his own they can only belong to...the scavenger?

Her consciousness unfurls in his mind, like some animal emerging from its resting place. Kylo clenches his jaw. He didn't mean to catch her attention.

“What?” is how she acknowledges him.

“What's down there?” The question comes out of him automatically, fed to her like a stream of consciousness at the will of their bond. At once she snatches the memory out of his grasp, leaving afterimages in its wake. The feeling she gave off in the interrogation room –  that he's seen something she didn't want him too – oozes from her.

“You stay out of my head, you hear?” she says as if he was snooping around and not passively witnessing memories that simply slipped through.

“I'm not the one who made this bond you know,” Kylo retorts.

“And I did?”

“Yes.”

“Bantha fodder. How did _I_ do this?”

There is only one point in time where Kylo can trace the bond back to. Her hungry thoughts clawing into his to protect herself. Undiluted raw power from someone so inexperienced. It wasn't just pure force, it was cunning and wit, a keen mind looking for a way around the problem. She'd been a fox in a trap, he knew that then too, and she'd taken the best and first way out, not knowing or caring about the consequences.

She doesn't appreciate the reminder.

“Then you destroy it,” she says, “break it.”

The thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth. Broken bonds are not easily suffered, even if one hates the person at the other end. He should know, he suffered three at once. “No dice, sweetheart,” he bites out. “I would if I could.”

“Liar. I know you've done it before.”

Will he have no secrets left from her when this is over? And will none of them remain untwisted by her determination to see him as nothing else but a monster?

“Me?” Kylo spits. “That was done _to_ me, Scavenger.”

There's a sting in his cheek, like teeth, an echo of where she's biting her own as she mulls over his words. What he says is clear, he can’t lie, but she still has to find ulterior motives.

“You still think I would join the First Order?”

“They would certainly uplift you,” Kylo says. _But will it do her any good?_

He chides himself. There should be no 'but' after that sentence.

But the girl’s not listening. Kylo’s words leave one ear just as they enter the other. At best what he says is an annoyance to her. “I'll go to the First Order they day you decide to come home, Ben.”

He grits his teeth. _Schutta._ “Fine. You can perish with the rebels. See what I care.”

“At least I won't be on the side that commits genocide.”

Oh, if he could only strangle her. “Don't put that on me! I had no part in that.”

“No? Do you forget your alignments when it's convenient?”

“Just maybe, if you'd've given me that map, that could have been prevented!”

Her ire flares into a full blown fire as Kylo's words come out. He scrambles, aware that he just put the annihilation of thousands of nations on her. A rather unfair accusation even from him. He’s not as much pushed out of the conversation as he is torn away from it. Kylo gasps, disoriented, and opens his eyes to the small room in the bowels of the Halcyon.

He kicks over the chair, breaking the bottle of water that has been sitting on top of it and earning himself a stab of blinding pain to the wound in his side for his efforts.

* * *

For a wild moment staying seems like a legitimate option. At least until the next planet like doctor Maer suggested. Maybe Zaph would let him into the repair shop again if he made some bogus apology for making a mess of it. To stay on as some nobody, no name, no past. Just a future he can choose of his own volition. Kylo puts his forearm to his mouth and bites down on the flesh until the thought goes away.

Defying destiny is a fool’s idea.

The ship shakes in that familiar way that marks its entrance into atmosphere. When the hum of the engines comes to an end Kylo makes his way to the hangar. He's about halfway down the set of stairs in the cargo hall that leads down from the catwalk when he gets cornered by a exasperated doctor Maer carrying a big bundle in her arms.

A truck hoverer speeds in and out of the cargo hold, unloading containers in neat lines. Nine's head is visible from just over the railing of the stairs. His expression looks possibly even more sour than Kylo has ever seen him. He’s joined by two humans, a man and a woman. Across the hall three of the biggest containers are being lined up along the far wall, and Kylo’s eyes fall on a dirty yellowish one right in the middle of them all.

“Ok, you know what Matt,” Maer says, shoving the bundle she's carrying against his chest. Kylo takes it by reflex, but with only one arm half of it falls out of his grip. A stuffed rucksack thuds to the metal staircase and slumps down a few steps. “I didn't drag you back from the brink of death and fix you up only so you could walk out there and kriffing freeze to death on me.” She rips a jacket from what's left in Kylo's hands and holds it open to him. “This part of Karidepht might not be that cold this time of the year, but believe me, the sudden temperature drops can get freakish.”

Kylo frowns at her. Doctor Maer shakes the jacket, her eyebrows raised expectantly. “Put it on, you great lump,” she barks, then proceeds to try and thread his left arm through the right sleeve, giving him no choice but to comply.

The yellow crate stands where it’s been placed. Nothing conspicuous there.

“Don't tell Cap, but I've packed enough portions to last you a couple of weeks” Maer continues, securing the jacket over Kylo's right shoulder. “Enough to feed even a big guy like you.” After tucking the unused sleeve under Kylo's slinged arm, she picks up the rucksack and hands it to him as well. “Jagger, our pilot, is about your size. A little lesser in the buff department maybe, but he's got the height going for him. I bribed him for a set of change. I'll be doing his share of cleaning the ‘freshers for the next six months, but hey, what are small favors among friends.” She glances up at him. “Or brief acquaintances at least. Anyhow, I wrote down instructions for the daily dosage of pain meds you should be using. It's only enough for a few days, but I'm guessing a smart guy like yourself knows where to get more of it. Don't bother getting the fancy stuff, the regular stuff will work just fine as long as you allow yourself to heal and remember to rest when you need it.”

Just as she appears to be done talking she raises a finger and closes her eyes briefly as if trying to remember something. “There's a credit chit in the inner pocket. It's not much but it'll last you a few days. Oh, and ask for Khora's inn. Anyone in this city knows where that is. Drop Captain Adilet's name and they might give you a discount.”

Kylo blinks down at the rucksack hanging from his hand. She’s thought of everything. Enough of the manners he'd been taught as a child has survived the First Order for him to know he should be saying something to the doctor right about now. To offer his gratitude, to tell her he couldn't possibly accept all of this, maybe even complain that he’s not some damn charity case. But no sound comes out, except the click as he swallows thickly around his snarled up throat.

He really wishes she wouldn’t have.

“Now go,” she says, “before I decide that prison cell was a good idea after all.”

The first step he takes away from her is strangely heavy, but the following ones get easier as he makes his way down. As he reaches the deck Kylo glances across the cargo hold. That yellow container hasn't moved. The people Nine were talking to have just made their exit, and now the loadmaster tips his head up to watch Kylo as he leaves. For once the look he gives him isn’t sullen, but somehow strange. Then Nine huffs and turns away. Kylo glances over the yellow container one last time, then makes his way to the open cargo doors.

The world outside is muddy, and there's moisture in the air that speaks of previous rain. Beyond the dock the mega-city of Karideph blares, the buildings looming dark and weathered and taller the further away they get. Kylo walks halfway down the ramp and –

– stops.

The Force _calls_ to him.

What now? Why this sudden end to the radio silence?

Beyond the wall of shattered glass that prevents Kylo from actually drawing on it, it swirls and beckons, pulling at him in a way it has never done before. Three suns near the horizon as he stands there. The city takes on a intense reddish color right in front of his eyes, but Kylo doesn't see it.

_Go back._

He turns. Inside the Halcyon's cargo hold nothing has changed. The neat stacks of new inventory line the deck just as they did only moments ago. Kylo takes an overview of the room, and then does it again. But he already knows….

_Over there._

The yellow crate stands as silent as ever between its twins. No, that's not it. It might not be giving off any sounds, but there's something there alright.

The rucksack thumps to the deck, completely forgotten. Kylo makes his way across the hold. He doesn't know what to expect when he presses his palm to the cold and peeling durasteel. A burst of power? A change in the Force? Instead there's just that pull. That inexplicable call.

What is this?

Kylo closes his eyes and instead of pulling at the Force he opens himself up to it. Inside the yellow container a bundle of _something_ reveals itself. Pure Force, neither light nor dark, a shapeless mass. It flickers slowly into being, like a child opening its eyes for the first time.

There's been an awakening.

A very small one at that.

“What’cha doing there techie?”

Kylo jolts out of his trance to find Nine staring at him with a mixture of suspicion and bemusement.

“Weren't you about to piss off?” the loadmaster asks.

“I, uh,” Kylo starts. _There’s a lump of the Force in your cargo. Mind opening up this box for me?_

Nine frowns, a hint of that now familiar grumpiness coming back into his features. “Come on. You have no business here with the inventory.”

“I heard a sound,” Kylo says.

“There's nothing but Karidephian whiskey in there,” Nine tells him, waving a hand at Kylo to move. “Get out of here.” And he steps aside, giving Kylo enough space to pass him.

A thin sound comes from the container.

Kylo would've sworn it was just in his head if it hadn't been for Nine's reaction. The loadmaster frowns at the locked container doors then fixes Kylo with a questioning glare, one eyebrow raised. The sound comes again.

“This what you heard?” Nine points at it.

_Sure._

“Yes,” Kylo replies.

“That's some ears you got there.”

Nine glances between Kylo and the lock on the container for a few seconds, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully, the expression on his face far from pleased. After a few seconds of this, he takes a step back to look over his shoulder towards the loading doors. He eyes Kylo again. He looks back over to the door. He looks at the crate. He looks at Kylo. An impatient twitch has developed in the way Nine moves.

The sound comes again. This time it's louder.

“I knew there was a reason I didn't like their ugly mugs,” Nine growls. “Traders are never that friendly unless they want something.”

Will wonders never cease? As fate would have it, Kylo’s luck turns because Nine found someone he dislikes even more.

He leaves Kylo by the container, and makes his way towards the back of the cargo hold. Over by the stairs doctor Maer follows Nine's movements along with Kylo as he rummages through the inventory back there. He comes back with a pair of cutters.

“Hey Nine, what's going on?” Maer asks as she trots over.

“You better comm Jagger, Mana,” Nine tells her, “I don't think there's anything good inside this thing.”

“As opposed to everything else we bring aboard?” she asks, her face serious. “You better be sure about this. Are you sure about this?”

“Nope.”

_“Nine.”_

“I just.... I got a bad feeling about this ok. Will you just comm him?”

Inside the container that ball of Force moves again. Kylo bites his lip. _Yes, Maer. Would you just comm him?_

Maer and Nine shares a look, as though some unspoken communication is going on between them. Then Maer sighs and pulls a comm unit out from the inside of her west. Nine turns towards the container and lifts the cutters to the lock. Within seconds it comes loose with a sound of finality. Kylo steps aside as Nine pulls at the doors to the cargo. They open with a shrill whine.

Silence falls. Kylo blinks, trying to rectify what he sees inside the dark space. At his side, Maer stands frozen with with the comm unit held to her mouth. Nine lets out a breath he must have been holding.

Inside the yellow container, strapped to padded racks, lined up as neatly as the cargo hall outside, are rows and rows of sleeping children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for human trafficking.


	5. Both eyes open - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Force has other plans for Kylo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The warning for the end of the last chapter still stands for this one. Human trafficking.
> 
> Thank to TehanuFromEarthsea for some tough feedback on parts this particular chapter! :)
> 
> Comments are always appreciated and they keep me going. This story is now over 25k and it's only just started. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the thought of writing this monster, and that's when your feedback makes me want to continue writing. I can't tell you how much your encouragement means to me. So thanks for the comments and kudos!
> 
> Enjoy!

“Mother's milk in a cup,” Maer whispers. She places her hand on the shoulder of a ashen faced Nine. He has gone slack mouthed, looking as if he's about to vomit. Kylo grips the door on his end, still blinking at the scene in front of them.

The children, there must be at least thirty of them in all, are stacked on top of each other in racks like bunkbeds, each of their little noses almost brushing the bunk above them. Narrow spaces wide enough for an adult person to walk run between the rows. The kid closest to Kylo, a pale blond boy, looks barely six or five.

Maer and Nine jump as a shrill cry comes from inside the container. Kylo stiffens.

_There._

Three stacks in, right in the middle, a girl struggles against the restraints around her little wrists and feet, twisting her head against the band holding it in place. Frantic energy rolls off her in torrents through the Force. Uncontrolled, scared, _dangerous._ Kylo makes to take a step inside.

A blaster bolt ricochets off the container right above his head. Kylo, Maer and Nine scatter like a flock of birds.

“Kriff!” Nine exclaims, taking cover behind another container. “Should've thought of that.”

“Jagger,” Maer yells into her comm unit. She pushes the door to the container shut again. “We need lift off ASAP. Deliverers are hostile! I repeat, deliverers are hostile.”

“What?” comes the crackling reply from the other end. “Again?”

Kylo casts a glance around the corner of the box he and Maer has taken cover behind. He counts four people, the two whom Nine had been talking to earlier, and another two, all holding blasters at the ready. He jerks back as a bolt distorts the air around his ear. Reaching for his lightsaber ends with just the thought, he has no functioning saber hand and no lightsaber to speak of. At least he doesn't automatically reach for the Force, having learned not to the hard way.

“ _Jagger!_ ” Maer shouts again.

“All right, all right! I'm going! Just hang on for a sec. I'm in the mess.”

“And close the door for us. We're sort of in a pickle here.”

In one fluid motion Maer closes her unit and draws out two blasters, one of which she thrusts towards Kylo. Just like the bundle she handed him earlier, he takes it automatically.

“You're giving the radar technician a weapon?” Nine says, who has produced a blaster of his own somehow. From where, Kylo has no idea. “For kriff sake Mana!”

“Maybe we found the one trooper who can hit a target,” she deadpans, “you never know.”

Kylo fumbles with the damned thing. He hasn't held a blaster in years. It's not like the one he used to practice with when he was younger, but smaller and lighter. For someone else's hand.

The Force signature of the little girl inside the container grows panicked, making the hairs on Kylo's arms stand up. Getting as good grip on the blaster as he can, he swings his hand out of cover. He pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens.

_Kriff._

He left the safety on.

Out of all the moments to choose from, it just happens to be this one the scavenger decides to pipe up.

“Listen,” she says in Kylo's head, sounding determined, “If this is going to be a... permanent thing we're going to have to make ground rules.”

“What?” Kylo says. By his side Maer gives him a strange glance before she turns her attention back to the enemy.

 _What?_ he repeats inwardly.

“I'm sure you can agree that we both need privacy,” the scavenger says.

_You want to do this now?_

“One down!” Maer calls out as she gets behind cover again, red beams streaking past right above her head, whipping strands of her hair up as they go by. She is utterly unperturbed.

“No,” the scavenger says, “I wanna do this when the stars aligns. Yes _now_!”

“Any time now, Radar,” Nine growls, dodging a bolt.

“Are you listening?” the girl asks.

 _Yes! Yes, fine! Ground rules. Sure!_ Kylo frantically retorts. This blasted safety switch is in the wrong place! His hand is shaking.

“Uh, Mana,” Nine shouts over to where Maer has climbed on top of another box to get a better shot. “I don't think he's a leftie.”

“I am right here, dammit,” Kylo snaps at him. Blast that man. He's _not_ helping.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Knock it off you two!” Maer hollers over the cacophony of the firefight. Nine fixes her with a glare as if to say Kylo started it.

“What's going on?” the scavenger asks. “Are you in a fight?”

Kylo curses as he wrestles with the blaster. Did someone glue the safety switch?

 _Not kriffing now,_ he tells her.

“Where are you?”

_I said not now, Rey!_

“So you _do_ know my name. Who would have thought.”

In the midst of all the action, the sound of machinery starts up. The ship comes alive around them. The deep whine of hydraulic doors thrums throughout the cargo hold. Immediately, as if in reaction to the noise, that little bundle of Force that is the awake child grows even more panicked. The _strength_ of her. An outburst could cause irreparable damage. She's terrified, dazed and only just awoken. A possibly catastrophic mix.

And she's alone. That is unacceptable.

 _I know kiddo,_ Kylo thinks. _I can hear you. I know._

“Excuse me?” Rey says.

“Ha! Three down,” Maer shouts. “I think....”

Finally, the safety clicks off, but the next second a red beam cuts through Kylo's jacket sleeve, burning a hole just above his elbow. He jerks and the damned blaster slips in his sweaty palm. “Fuck!”

 _Grandfather, help me!_ He throws his plea out into the ether, but damnit if the dead bastard doesn’t think this is the perfect moment to return.

“You know what,” Rey says, sounding odd. She heard that didn't she? Of course she did. Why wouldn’t she? “This can wait after all. I need to go.” And she leaves, her consciousness fading until it's just that little reminder of their bond left.

One distraction less to think about at least.

Kylo holds the blaster up in front of himself. He's ready. The safety's off. He's doing this. He's about to –

But he doesn't get to do anything before Nine swings around the corner of his cover. His would-be assailant goes down shrieking, blood spraying from where he whipped the butt of his blaster across her face.

“Four,” Nine says, standing above the sprawling woman, aiming his blaster at her head.

Kylo kicks the weapon she dropped away from her reaching hand, earning himself a frosty glare from over the palm she holds to her nose. She spits at his feet, and shouts things in a language he doesn’t know.

“Nice,” Maer says coming up besides Kylo. She tugs at the hole in his sleeve. “They only got the fabric,” She slaps Kylo on the back. “What would a mere flesh wound be to you anyway, eh? Nine, you alright?”

“Bastards got me in the shins,” Nine complains. “Just a nick, but dammit.”

Their attention turns to the woman shouting insult after insult from her place on the floor. Kylo turns to the crate with the children, his focus specifically on the girl with the Force. She's stopped crying. It's rare to find a Force user so young this day and age. If the records of the Empire archives that remains in the hands of the First Order are anything to go by then the Jedi used to gather them up in spades back in the old Republic, usually when they were barely out of their diapers. Impressionable children are easily malleable.

The blaster is still in his hand and the ship hasn't lifted off just yet. Maer and Nine are too busy trying to get the woman to shut up to pay attention to Kylo. He can still get off with the kid in tow.

_(Remember son, we practice for sport, so that when we find ourselves in a pickle, we can rely on our reflexes to get us out of it.)_

Kylo shakes his head. And what's he going to do after he gets off? Give her to Snoke? It would certainly be an apt apology.

Although....

There’s a sudden change in the girl, jolting him out of his thoughts. Kylo doesn't as much see the person sneaking up the steps leading up to the catwalk as he's sensing their presence, creeping up there to get a good shot at the people distracted by a screaming woman on the floor.

_(Take a deep breath and let it out slowly as you aim, Ben.)_

His left hand snaps up, angling towards a point just above Nine's tuft of hair, blaster at the ready.

_(Keep both eyes open, son.)_

The sound of the shot cracks throughout the cargo hold. Both doctor Maer and Nine jump, their eyes on Kylo as if expecting the blaster will point towards them next. Up on the stairwell, the very last goon collapses like a rag-doll, tumbling down the steps all the way to the deck below.

* * *

“Wanna tell me what the kriffing hell is going on here?” Captain Adilet says, addressing the woman with a broken nose. Blood now drips from between her fingers where she's holding them across her face. Her one remaining companion, the guy Kylo shot just minutes ago, sits propped up besides her against one of the containers, moaning and clutching his shoulder.

Captain Adilet, flanked by two additional crew members – a man and a woman Kylo recognizes from the mess last night – had come into the cargo hall guns blazing after the actual fight had died down for real. The extra manpower now hovers over the would-be assailants, holding them at blaster point. Both of them look utterly disappointed that they didn't get to join in on the shooting.

Kylo stands off to the side, looking pointedly at everything other than the little girl standing between him and the doctor. She in turn stares at him with her big brown eyes as if his face is the strangest thing she's ever seen. The rest of the children have been left inside the container, all of them hooked up to tranquilizers that would’ve made them sleep until the Halycon reaches its next destination. They would have been unloaded there, and no one would have been wiser. Maer had decided that it is safer to let them sleep until she knows what’s been injected into their bloodstream.

Nine has taken up position furthest from the rest of them. He keeps running a hand across his ashen face. He, like Kylo is avoiding looking at the tiny human in their midst.

The girl hasn't said a single word since they brought her out. What looks like sleek black hair have been sheared half an inch from her scalp. The rags for clothes she wears hang off her too thin frame and her tawny skin has a sickly tinge to it. She sparkles brightly in the Force, however, which swirls all around her like ink in water. There's definitely potential in her. She's going to need guidance. The _right_ kind of guidance.

_Are you really going to do this?_

“Baltar will know you broke the code,” the woman with the bleeding nose says to Captain Adilet in broken standard. “He'll know and then you and your crew will be out of the Guild for ever.”

“The last time I checked trafficking of sapient lifeforms was an ever worse violation of the code,” Adilet informs her. She pulls out a comm unit of her own. “One of the worst in fact. Now I've got my pilot upstairs already in contact with the Guild, and he's transmitting this conversation as we speak. They already know what's in your cargo. Isn't that right Jagger?”

“Aye Capt'n” comes the reply form the comm unit. “All sets of fingers and toes are numbered and accounted for. They’ve got representatives on their way as we speak.”

“I don't believe the guild is going to mind that we opened some of your shipments. My question is what do you think they’ll say when we open the rest of it?” Adilet tells the woman on the floor. Despite the way she shrinks under Captain Adilet's stare, the look she returns remains poisonous. Her more gravely injured companion just screws up his face in pain, sweat forming on his face and his breath growing labored.

“Now what in the galaxy's name do you think you’re doing shipping children off like cattle?” Adilet presses.

“They were sending them to the First Order.” Everyone turns towards Nine as he comes walking up to them. He passes the Captain and points an accusing finger at the two on the floor. “This is how Stormtroopers are recruited isn't it? You pick some kids off the streets, the kind that look as if no one will miss them and you ship them off for easy money don't you?”

“Nine?” Maer takes a step towards him, leaving the little girl alone with Kylo.

“I know what it sounds like,” Nine stops Maer before she can say anything else. “But I'm telling you, I... I just have a feeling about this.” The look on his face isn’t anger, though anger is part of it. It’s nothing Kylo has ever seen before, though he might have felt it in another person, in another time, another planet. Lowering his gaze isn't really a natural thing if it's not in front of The Supreme Leader, but the floor is the only comfortable place to put it at the moment. Children to fatten the ranks of Hux’s army. Trained from birth, huh, General? In his peripheral vision the little girl inches closer, like Kylo's the safest thing to hide behind despite the strangeness of his face.

He should take her and leave right now.

_Beat it, kid._

“Is this true?” Adilet asks. “You're providing the First Order with children for battle fodder?”

The woman with the bleeding nose spits. Flecks of blood spatter on Adilet’s shirt. “You can't stop them,” the she sneers. “You can kill us, but one day you'll bow like the rest of the galaxy. There's been no power as great as the First Order since the days of the Empire. You’ve seen what they can do. No one can stop them. When they rise your kind will be among the first to get culled.”

Nine makes a jerky motion towards her as if to strike, but Captain Adilet is there first. She smacks the woman across the face with the back of her hand. The woman topples over from the force of it. The guy with the shoulder wound, who has been leaning on her, almost follows. He straightens himself with a look of confusion, as if what is going on around him has completely passed him by. Adilet smacks him too.

By now the little girl has crept all the way behind Kylo. She peeks out around the area of his thigh, her eyes round as marbles and her mouth open wide. Jittery turmoil swirls all around her. Kylo's hand tightens on the blaster.

He really should get out of here.

Adilet straightens up again, wiping blood off her hand onto her pant leg. Her face is as flat as a mask, but there's something in her eyes.

“Who discovered the children?” she asks the room at large.

Maer nods towards Kylo. “Matt did, Cap. He said he heard this one crying.”

Adilet turns to him, her eyebrows raised as if surprised at discovering he's still here. Kylo has never met this woman before he woke up on the Halycon, he is sure of that, but there's something about her. Some indescribable familiarity that's like an itch he can't reach. Adilet considers him for a few moments, as if processing new information, then nods.

“Ress, Tull,” she addresses the pair that had followed her into the cargo hall, their blasters still trained at the man and woman on the floor, “don't let these two out of your sight until the Guild gets here. Doc, take care of this man's wound. I don't need another fanatic dead on my ship. Then make sure the children in the container are alright. Nine, will you take this girl up to Pia? Get her something warm to eat. Matt, you're coming with me.”

Kylo looks up at Adilet and then without really thinking about it down at the little girl. The girl in turn looks between him and Nine who is now coming over, is now sitting down on his haunches, is now reaching a hand out to her, is now telling her she's safe, no one will hurt her here. Her eyes meets Kylo's as if seeking confirmation.

 _Don't look at me_ , Kylo almost says to her.

He should be long gone by now. She's right there. _Just grab her and _go.__

“Matt,” Maer says. “My blaster.”

His left hand comes up, lifting the thing toward her with the butt first, the barrel pointing back at Kylo. What is he doing? _What_ is he _doing?_

_(Never point the weapon at the person you're handing it to. That's just common courtesy, Ben)_

Maer picks the blaster out of his hand and turns it over in her own as she looks it over. “Huh,” she says. “You unstuck the safety.”

“With me,” Adilet practically orders him, and she turns and marches towards the stairway as if unquestionably expecting him to follow. Kylo doesn't look down again, but he can feel that little bundle of Force that is the girl change, her energy turning into a forlorn sort of disappointment, the strands that have somehow latched onto him picking themselves loose one by one.

 _I'm not your... kriffing anything,_ Kylo thinks.

And so he follows Captain Adilet back up the stairs again and out of the cargo hall, leaving the girl behind with the rest of the crew where she'll be completely safe.

* * *

The office looks like a part of Adilet's private cabin. She disappears through a door to their left when they enter and comes back with a bottle of amber liquor and two cups which she sets down on her uncluttered desk. Apart from some fairly detailed holo maps of various hyperlanes across the galaxy the walls are empty. All her most personal things must be beyond the door. She sits down behind the desk and motioning for Kylo to do the same.

“Did Doc say anything about you not drinking alcohol?” she asks, pouring a finger of the liquid in both cups. “Nevermind. Have some.” She pushes one towards Kylo. The knuckles of her hand are bloodied.

The mere fumes from the cup’s contents stings his eyes when he lifts it to his mouth, and it burns on his tongue. Kylo’s no lightweight, far from it, but right now everything is just _so much._ Pressure is building at his temple, and the mere smell of the whiskey makes him unsteady. He might have jostled his wounds earlier; they ache like mad. The light flares in his eyes. The colors of the room all just seem so bright it makes him nauseous. Kylo winces as he puts the cup down, his hand unsteady.

_(Keep both eyes open, son.)_

He shakes his head. It’s like something has snapped inside him, like it did when Anakin had broken whatever that thing was in his mind, but instead of bursting into uncontrollable laughter he would gladly lie down and sleep for days. Lightheadedness makes him sway, and he’s grateful he’s sitting down.

Han Solo just saved his life.

He was kriffing helpless and his dad's teachings just saved his life.

Adilet drains her own cup and leans back in her chair. For a while she doesn’t say anything, just regards one of the holo maps on her wall with far away eyes as she turns her cup around on the table with her fingertips.

“They took my baby,” she says in the end. Something inside Kylo makes a tiny leap. He wasn’t expecting that. “They took him and then they took my husband's life when he tried to get him back. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd have another family, but it happened despite everything. My second one is twelve, at home and safe, happy as any boy can be, but....” Her gaze turns to Kylo. “Sam was suppose to be his big brother.”

He turns his own eyes to the cup in front of him, shrinking into his chair. The image of a little boy with Adilet’s hair and her nose strapped to one of those racks comes unbidden.

Adilet shakes herself as if realizing who she’s talking to. She straightens up, becoming the more matter of fact woman who he met just two days ago.

“Zapf told me you did a decent job on that droid before you decided trashing it was a better idea.”

Kylo takes the cup and sips from it again, for the mere excuse of having something to do with his hand. So he had an outburst. So what?

“It's my opinion that Doc has been a softie on you,” Adilet continues. “That's just her. She finds strays and reels them inn. That's how we got stuck with Nine. She wouldn't take the job unless I hired him too. Luckily for us he runs the cargo hold smoother than anyone I’ve known. Never saw a deck that organized before, or that clean. That part of this ship belongs to him now.”

She leans towards Kylo, her elbows on the desk and clasping her hands in front of herself. “Doc's been lobbying hard on your behalf. I was ready to let someone else take you off our hands. You're shifty, Matt, and you have the look of a runner. I've met plenty of that kind. They're never good news.” She pauses for a second, then goes on. “Now, I'm not known to be a spontaneous person, but what you did down there, finding those children, keeping my crew safe, taking that shot? That's worth something.”

Adilet picks up the bottle of liquor and fills up his cup even though he's barely touched it.

“You have a job here on the Halcyon, if you want it.”

Kylo blinks. Did she actually just say that or is his condition is making him hear things? There’s this thing in his chest and he can’t figure out whether it’s good or bad.

Adilet holds up a hand, her face conceding. “Let’s call it a trial run for now. Pay’s no good and the food’s worse. Nine will probably never let me hear the end of it, but the Maker knows we could do with some more of his complaining. But it’ll be a start.”

He shouldn't say yes, he shouldn’t be saying yes at all, but he can't make his mouth form the word ‘no’.

“I suggest you think about it while you recover. We'll be here until tomorrow and then on Gandle in two day cycles. You'll have another chance to get off when we get there. What do you say Matt? Will you think about it?”

It’s the strangest thing how the the whole concept of staying seems not – terrible? Before he knows it Kylo hears himself say the words: “I'll think about it.”

Adilet nods. “Good.” She drains her cup. “You look like you need to lie down. Why don’t you go get some rest? I need to get down there and meet the people from the Guild.”

“The girl,” Kylo starts, stopping her in her tracks. Adilet’s attention is on him and he has no plans for what he’s about to say.

That kid will need training.

_And?_

A competent teacher.

_Yes, and?_

A safe environment to come into her own power.

_And she’ll get that where?_

Kylo looks down to the arm that rests in its sling to his chest. The ache in his shoulder has grown into a distracting throbbing. He can barely stand to brush again the barrier that keeps him from drawing on the Force. The girl is still on the ship, her presence burning brightly in the back of his mind. It’s with some sense of defeat he admits to himself he’s in no place to offer any of the conditions a child in training needs. He’s never seen someone so young apprenticing for the Knights of Ren. That part is always left to some poor fucker who will eventually lose the kid when it reached a certain age or level of skill. The First Order was never a place for children.

“What about the girl?” Adilet presses.

Kylo rubs his forehead. _Yes, what about the girl?_

“Send her to Takodana” he says eventually, and a chill runs through his body as he speaks the words. This is disobedience. But then again, what’s one more discrepancy after everything he’s done against Snoke’s wishes.

“And what’s on Takodana?” Adilet asks.

“There’s a woman named Maz –”

“Kanata?” Adilet leans back in her chair, folding her arms in front. Her gaze is more than interested. It’s intrigued. “How does someone like you know about Maz Kanata?”

_(“Who doesn’t know about Maz Kanata?” His dad’s voice had been loud and careless, spoken as he balanced precariously on the back feet of his chair.)_

“Who doesn’t know about her?” Kylo offers. Adilet gives him one of her all-knowing stares. There are probably few things that get past this woman. The collar of his shirt feels a little tight all of a sudden.

“You think there’s something more to the child,” she states instead of asks. “I admit, the circumstances surrounding her discovery are strange. She was hooked up to the tranquilizers just like the rest of them. There’s no reason she should be awake. I heard somewhere that someone who has the Force can rid themselves of poison. I suppose the same is true for everything that can end up in a person’s bloodstream.”

Kylo nods along to her explanation. It’s not a lie. She isn’t _wrong,_ she’s just not entirely right.

Adilet purses her mouth thoughtfully. “You understand that we can’t take a child away from her homeworld just like that? Even if she doesn't have family.”

She holds up her hand as he opens his mouth. “We do not ship unwilling sapient lifeforms on this freighter. I can make a pretty good guess how things were done where you came from, but that’s not how we do things here. We can not take children away from the only life they know just because we think it’s a good idea.”

She’s right. Damnit, but she is. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he has to. There’s a clarity to his thoughts, the same clarity he’d had when lying in the snowdrift and the scavenger – _Rey_ – had left him behind broken and beaten. Memories come so easily to him. A pang of old, but well-nursed grudge hits like a punch to the gut; the betrayal of being sent away as a boy, away from the only life he’d even known.

“I tell you what,” Adilet continues. “There are a few strings I can pull. There are people who can help with this sort of thing, and they can bring her where she needs to go, but I won’t make any promises. The child will have the final say in this, and if she doesn’t want to go she’s not going.”

It’s out of his hands anyway, Kylo concedes to himself. He gave away the blaster, he didn’t walk away when he had the chance to, and now he’s as good as accepted to stay on as a crew member on some obscure ship no one’s ever heard of when he should be more concerned about fulfilling his destiny. Nothing makes sense anymore. _Shit,_ he’s so _tired._ He drags his hand across his forehead in sheer bewilderment and exhaustion, and winces when the movement pulls at the bowcaster wound.

Adilet stands up to go, but stops. “One more thing,” she says with a sudden mildness in her voice. “Things are going to be different from now on, no matter what you choose. There's no going back, I think you already know this. But I want you to also know that no one here will blame you for mourning a life that is over.”

Flecks of light swirl in his whiskey, the content of his cup not quite settled. If he could somehow drown himself in it... Kylo reaches for the cup.

_(Will you help me?_

_Yes, anything.)_

A sob burst from his throat. He covers his eyes with his palm, his face underneath screwing up without his permission. It's like battling a sickness with mere willpower alone, useless, and he doesn’t seem to have the strength to do it anymore. It’s fighting so hard to come out he’s shaking from it.

On the other side of her desk Adilet stands in silence, somehow communicating a solemn understanding with her lack of words. Kylo would have expected derision and he wants to hate her for it, but there’s just an unbearable relief. Relief that she’s allowing this to happen, seems to expect it, even welcomes it.

_(You know it’s true.)_

What does he have left to lose? What has fighting it ever given him? _Nothing,_ that’s what. He’s just so sick of holding this thing in his chest down – this thing that has been amplified by the new bond latched deep inside him and somehow cut free by Anakin. So as the last bricks fall, it's not just because he's no longer holding it at bay. No, Kylo Ren is crushing the stone and mortar underfoot, grinding it into pulp and dust as he breaks down into sobs in front of Captain Adilet, because fuck it.

_Fuck it._

It’s like Anakin said, nothing ever kriffing goes as Kylo thinks they will. What good was he thinking going back to the First Order would do? He was done with it. Why would he want to go back after what it has led him to?

He nearly fucked everything up again.

Whoever told him as a boy that tears have healing power have better been right, because at this moment he can't see any other way to make this thing in his chest go away. His last resort is this; pathetic, disgusting, only for the weak willed, and he’s grabbing it with both hands and holding on for dear life. Because despite everything he's worked towards for the last seven years, despite everything Supreme Leader Snoke has taught him about sacrifice and destiny, Ben Organa-Solo is grieving his father's life.

And it's a mess. His family never did anything but prove themselves to be nothing but liars, murderers and thieves. Unworthy of the trust and childish unyielding devotion he once had for them. And yet.

Yet, when Han asked him to come home, his first thought had been yes.

And what did he do? What did he _do?_ There’s still a warm spot on his cheek after his father’s hand. His dad. Oh Maker, his _own dad._

There she is again. For the third time that day Kylo finds himself in the focus of Rey’s attention. Her thoughts are guarded as if this is some kind of ploy. For once it’s _he_ who cuts _her_ off, pushes her out and mutes the bond between them til there’s nothing left but a whisper, a trick he can only have learned from her. She's seen so much of him already, he won't let her pry this from him too. If it’s privacy she wants, privacy is what she’ll get.

It all comes back to her in the end. The Force must have possessed Kylo when he chose to forget about the droid for the secondhand information in Rey's mind. Her presence has littered Kylo's path like tripwires before he even set eyes on her. She's linked to everything; the droid, that rogue trooper, even his own father's reappearance in Kylo's life.

Kylo was raised to serve the light. He could never forget old lessons in morality just because he no longer agreed with them or found them inefficient and foolish. It’s because of said lessons he knows why she walked away in the end, even though he can’t – _couldn’t?_ – agree with it. There was never a chance in hell she would ever follow Kylo Ren no matter how much he had to offer, not after witnessing what he did. No, if the Force didn't put her in his path to join his cause then she was put there to stop him. He just didn’t realize until now.

At some point Adilet comm unit beeps. Kylo barely registers it as she leaves, but as the door slides shut behind her – a lingering imprint of a hand left on his shoulder – he looks up to discover that the cup of whiskey has been replaced with a mug of something dark and steaming. The ceramic warms his hand as he picks it up and the smell wafts under his nose as he brings it close. A bark of a laugh escapes him.

How long since he had something like this, or even the synthesized version of it? Kriff, he’d been a teenager the last time. Adilet would probably never have left it had she known his full story, but he's going to accept it, because _screw it._ Screw Hux and his megalomaniac excuse for a personality, screw the First Order and screw the old Empire. They’re long dead anyway. Kylo is going to drink this goddamn cup no matter what because he kriffing well chooses too. It tastes fucking delicious.

It happens as he’s halfway to the bottom of the mug. There’s that sense of a veil brushed aside again, like a hand ghosting over the hairs on his neck.

If it isn’t just his luck that this is how Anakin finds him when he finally returns; Kylo Ren, former Master of the Knights of Ren blubbering his misery into a cup of Hoth chocolate.

“There's a blaster hole in your sleeve,” Anakin blurts out, completely sidestepping Kylo's evident swollen and wet eyes. Thank the Maker for little things.

Kylo snivels. “Was in a shooting.”

“You were _what?_ ”

“There were kids in a container.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I'm fine, I'm telling you there was this –”

“I can't believe this!” Anakin throws his nonexistent hands in the air. “I leave you alone for an hour and you go and almost get yourself killed. _Again!_ How am I going to explain to your grandmother that I almost lost our only grandson?”

Why gosh. Thanks for the concern, Grandpa. “A day,” Kylo corrects him, putting the cup down so he can wipe his face.

“Excuse me?”

“You were gone for a day, not an hour.”

There’s a palpable sense of the ghost deflating. “Oh,” he says. “Well…. Time's different when you're dead.”

A moment passes. Then Anakin speaks, his tone much calmer than it was seconds ago. “Are you alright?”

Kylo bites his cheek. The sting is nothing against the pain from the rest of his wounds, but he needs something to prepare himself for what he’s about to confess too. He screws his eyes shut. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Anakin goes still, his signature balancing right in the middle of relief and apprehension.

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

Why does he have the feeling of sitting in front of a kneeling giant? Like the feeling when he was a child and someone would crouch down to his height. Anakin can see everything that has transpired over the course of the day he’s been gone – Kylo’s ill-conceived decision, his recent change of heart – and he emits a sense of recognition.

“Well then,” Anakin says. “That is more than I could have hoped for.”

“This is it then?” Kylo covers his face with his palm and breathes out. “I turn myself into the Resistance now?”

Anakin makes a noncommittal sound. “If that’s what you want.”

Kylo lifts his face from his hand, looking at the empty room at large. “It's what you asked for, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Anakin replies and is that a hint of _abashedness_ in his tone? “About that. Forget it. You don’t need to follow my wishes.”

Kylo lets his hand fall to his lap.

“Earlier,” Anakin continues, “I think I needed some perspective. I’ve been… pushing you to further my own agenda. That was... wrong of me.”

There’s been a lot of things Anakin has done that goes against all of the expectations Kylo had of his grandfather, but if there’s one thing he never thought he would hear from him it’s something that sounds a lot like an apology.

“I’ve forgotten what it was like,” Anakin says. “There’s been people with their hand on my noose too, controlling my every move. and I’ve done the same to others in turn. It never led to anything good. I’ve decided I’m not going to be just another overlord holding your leash.”

Kylo’s gaze drops. After the events of the day – the firefight and falling to pieces in front of Captain Adilet – he’s now filled with something beyond exhaustion, a bone deep hollowness that may never be gone. “What about the light?”

“Forget about it.”

Kylo lifts his head. “Forget?” he repeats in disbelief.

“And the darkness. Forget about that too.”

“And do what?”

“Take up crochêt?” Anakin replies. “What do kids do these days anyway? I don’t know. Choose your own way.”

Choose his own way? It’s such an unfamiliar notion to him it’s laughable. There’s hardly been a time in his life when he wasn’t bound by duty. There’s always been someone pulling at his strings, driving him this way or that.

Except for now.

Captain Adilet has made him an offer. An _offer_ and not a demand. A job that he can do fairly well and that doesn’t require regular interactions with a certain constipated redheaded General. He could be a nobody, someone who doesn’t have their life planned out before them by some holy prophecy.

But Kylo balks. If there’s something that’s doesn’t tempt him it’s the thought of passing into a life of obscurity. It’s not enough.

Anakin turns to him, as if he’s figured that even if he’s decided he’s not going to demand anything it doesn’t mean he can’t make suggestions. “There is one thing.”

“What?”

Anakin nudges Kylo’s memory back in time, to the last moments before he lost consciousness on the shuttle.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kylo says, feigning ignorance and failing hard.

“No? I saw your mind when you thought you were dying.”

“That was madness.”

“Yes!” Anakin’s newfound gusto comes dangerously close to infecting Kylo. “Yes it was, and it was beautiful.”

Kylo lets out a huff. It’s a terrible idea based solely on the fact that it’s impossible. He’s just one guy. One now _ordinary_ guy, and he has nothing to show for it. However, if there’s one thing that catches Kylo’s interest then it’s a chance to even the scales and remove General Hux from his position of power. The fact that it’s also a chance to rub it in real nicely to that power-hungry sycophant is just the cherry on top.

What does he have to lose?

Kylo catches himself, shaken by the thoughts he’s having. What he’s thinking is worse than leaving the First Order, worse than leaving his position with the Knights of Ren and his place at Snoke’s side. It’s more treacherous than treason.

It’s rebellion.


	6. Names and other unfortunate things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a new life starts.
> 
> Again...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief mention of animal cruelty in the beginning of this chapter. Remember, Kylo Ren is not a nice man.
> 
> Thanks to Tehanu and Applesith for always helping me out!
> 
> I wish I could do a Stephen King and finish the first draft of this story in three months, but that would probably mean I would have to quit my day job.
> 
> In case someone were wondering what my OC's look like, (no one has asked so far....:((() picture Rinko Kikuchi as Maer, Charlie Hunnam as Nine (yes I did write Mako and Rahleigh into my fic) and Viola Davis as Captain Adilet.
> 
> Well I'm off to assemble some furniture. I hope you guys enjoy this latest chapter. Someone requested more Reylo so I put something in there to quench the thirst.

The thing about preventing the completion of a superweapon that has the power to turn multiple planets into dust in one go, is one has to know where to find the construction site first.

 

For a person with not a lick of Force sensitivity Hux, the conniving bastard, had a keen ability to keep his thoughts locked down tight around Kylo. Nevertheless even he slipped up sometimes, but it only took the one. It had happened on one of those rare good days in the First Order. Kylo had just had the pleasure of witnessing him squirm under Snoke’s chastising over some oversight concerning an incident at one of the trooper farms. Afterwards, they’d crossed paths on the bridge of the Finalizer, Kylo taking up as much space as possible in the hopes that the git would fall into one of the sunken control stations in one of his desperate attempts to avoid him. One well placed shoulder check and Kylo’d been on the receiving end of not only Hux’s many sullen glares but also a momentarily poorly hidden thought. Just for a second. A vindictive _I know something you don’t_ , followed by petty satisfaction.

 

Except that now Kylo did know, he’s seen it as clear as day as if the General had purposefully projected it onto him; Starkiller’s twin being built at this very moment. How unoriginal. If someone had to repeat the Empires fiascos, of course it had to be Hux. Who else? But Kylo’s day had been thoroughly ruined, so naturally later on, he’d stuffed Millicent the cat into the nearest trash compactor.

 

At the time he’d thought of it as just another one of the things someone like Hux would do, but as of right now the knowledge of Starkiller II’s existence is the best thing he has. But even if Hux subconsciously divulged the existence of a weapon, the asshole of course just happened to leave out its location. And that’s just where the problems start. Finding the damned weapon is one thing, sabotaging it is a whole nother set of obstacles. One has to have resources, things like battleships, people and credits to pay for it. None of which are easy to come by if you're Matt the one armed and Force-less radar technician.

 

And he _is_ Matt the radar technician now, whether he likes it or not.

 

It's not the first time a name has left a sour taste in his mouth. ‘Ben Organa-Solo’ had felt like poison long before he joined the First Order. Shedding it, however, didn’t leave a bounty on his head. He’d vowed to only leave their ranks in death. To do otherwise would leave him a hunted man. If any of the Knights of Ren believes he didn’t die on Starkiller, he soon will be dead anyway. Well, it's too bad, because Kylo Ren is currently indisposed on account of being the biggest fuckup who ever graced the galaxy with his existence.

 

It happens as he makes his way back from Adilet's office to the little cabin. A bout of dizziness and nausea catches him off guard. As he’s regaining his bearings against the bulkhead, an itch pricks the back of his neck and he turns to find the little girl standing there, a safe ten feet between them. Slipped through the hands of adults who only wish to feed her. In her rags and unevenly cut hair, and with that distrustful glower, she looks like a proper ragamuffin. He would have checked his pockets if he hadn’t been the proud owner of absolutely nothing of value.

 

He doesn’t have to read her emotions to know her thoughts, her face betrays them all. _You’re like me,_ her face says. No question in there, although she probably doesn’t have the words to describe just how they’re the same. Her eyebrows are pulled down in a serious frown, her mouth a distrustful pout before she opens it to ask him in a tone he’d expect from a hardened adult and not a child: "What's your name?"

 

His heart makes a leap as he opens his own mouth, as if he'd just missed a step on the way down. A lot like the way he felt when he stood in front of the Knights of Ren for the first time to accept his place among them and had almost blurted out that his name was Ben Organa-Solo and not Kylo Ren out of sheer habit.

 

"Matt," he says.

 

Just like that. There’s a part of him that marvels at just how easy that was. It’s almost enough to mute the other part of him that is silently freaking out about just how easy that was.

 

This is the place where any other person would have asked the girl what she called herself, but Kyl – no – _Matt,_ takes a long good look at her, with her spindly limbs and her curious but suspicious big brown eyes, and he thinks, _if you ever hear voices, kid, or see shadows that aren't there, tell them to go fuck themselves._

 

Her eyes widen then narrows as if she’s trying to decipher a malicious trick.

 

The hissing of a door distracts them both, and he – _Matt_ – turns around to see who’s coming, subsequently earning himself a kick in the shins for taking his eyes off the girl. It’s with vindictive satisfaction he, with his eyes tearing up at the sharp pain, points a stressed out Nine in the direction of where she’d run off to.

 

So it is _Matt_ who trawls his way from Adilet’s office back to what has become his bed. It is _Matt_ who falls asleep as soon as his body hits the mattress and _Matt_ who sleeps through the rest of the day and the following night in fits and starts. It’s _Matt_ who dreams of a matted, black mask framed by stars beyond a viewport, and of Kylo Ren standing alone on a narrow bridge.

 

Matt the radar technician. He could have come to a much worse fate than this, he tells himself. He could have been dead. At least Anakin seems to get a kick out of not having to call him Kylo anymore.

 

He wakes up early the next morning. Kylo – _kriff –_ Ben – No.

 

_Ben?_

 

No. _Matt._ Definitely _Matt._

 

 _Matt_ stares for ten solid seconds at the ceiling – his shoulder letting him know there’s been a while since he’s taken painkillers – before the jittery feeling in his body takes over. Then he’s up, not even bothering to do anything but taking a u-turn through the ‘fresher to take a leak before he’s out the door, having slept in the clothes he wore the other day. The dark halls of the Halcyon hum with the low sound of its engine. He walks undisturbed on his way to the cargo hold. Might as well be a ghost in the walls.

 

He gets to the bottom of the stairs, from where he has a good view of the place where the yellow crate had stood the day before. There are a couple of other spaces close to it that are also empty. The Force no longer carries any trace of the young girl’s presence on the ship. She will have been taken care of along with the rest of the children, by someone who knows what the hell they’re doing with stacks of drugged kids. The cutter Nine had used still lies on the floor where he dropped it yesterday.

 

Crates of children going to the First Order.

 

It’s not like he didn’t know this was going on.

 

“It bites doesn’t it?” Anakin’s voice is low in his head. “Once you finally admit to yourself that the ends can never justify the means?”

 

Han’s voice hadn’t sounded or felt like that during the firefight yesterday. No Force ghost of his father here, just buried memories.

 

“You tell yourself it’ll all be worth it some day, all the atrocities,” Anakin murmurs. “But the thing is it keeps getting worse, so then you start telling yourself they deserve it, or you convince yourself you hate them, or maybe it’s their duty and only purpose in life. They’d be better off dying for a cause on some battlefield than living like rats and starving to death on the streets. They will thank you in the end once you’ve accomplished peace and order.”

 

“Stop it!” Matt says through his teeth, dragging his hand through his hair, hair that is beyond filthy at this point. There is bile in his throat and a ringing in his ears. The echo of the worm in the back of his brain makes him want to gag. “Quit reading my mind!”

 

Invisible eyes regard him. “I wasn’t,” Anakin says, “But it has been duly noted.”

 

He lets Matt sit in silence for a good ten seconds, just staring at the place where the crates used to be, and rubbing the back of his skull. Then Anakin speaks again. “Do you want to talk ab –”

 

“No.”

 

“Not even –”

 

“No.”

 

“I know what you’re –”

 

“Just shut up alright!”

 

Anakin’s signature flares with frustration, the same kind that Matt – then Kylo – had sensed before he’d gone off by himself the other day to do whatever the kriff ghosts do.

 

Trying to have a conversation with someone who won’t answer back, Anakin? That’s tough.

 

The door at the top of the staircase hisses open, and Matt turns in time to see Nine stepping into the cargo hold. The man stops in his tracks when he catches him there, his face puffy with sleep and his sandy hair uncombed, then squares his shoulders and continues down.

 

“Out of the fog now huh?” he says as he passes. Nine rolls his eyes when his question doesn’t receive a reply, but he soldiers on, apparently intent on at least trying to make small talk.

 

“You know why they call me Nine, techie?” he says.

 

Matt looks at him. “No,” he says.

 

“It was the only part of my serial number I could remember when I woke up in the medcenter,” Nine says. “Matt was your nickname I gather. What was your – hey where are yh – Kriff, why do I bother?” The last words he speaks to himself, exasperated.

 

“I’m leaving,” Matt says, already halfway up the staircase. When the most antagonistic person on the ship is making an effort to be friendly, it’s time to withdraw.

 

“Why don’t you take a turn in the ‘fresher,” Nine calls after him. “You’re getting kind of rank.”

 

“I like that guy,” says Anakin.

  


* * *

 

 

The next day he wakes to the old 2-1B medical droid standing in his door and telling him that breakfast will be served in the mess hall. It had to happen eventually – although he’d rather it had been later rather than sooner – the time of having Maer bring his meals to his cabin had to come to an end. In the real world he’s expected to take care of feeding himself, not rely on others to do it for him.

 

He gets as far as the hallway leading up to the mess before he stops, the thrum of machinery at the other end of the corridor behind him. The sound of a newsreader’s voice broken by the instability of the HoloNet’s signal comes through the doorway leading to the mess. Beyond the door the long wooden table is set, a few people are bustling about, some sitting down. He can see Adilet’s puff of gray-streaked black hair, besides some pink faced sleep drowsed young man sipping from a steaming cup. By the end of the table Zaph chews lazily on a spoonful of porridge, looking as if he’s very happy to be left alone where he sits. While Matt watches Maer and Nine comes to the table – each of them carrying their own bowls – and sits down.

 

Kyl – _Matt_ hesitates. What’s he doing here? This isn’t for him. His existence is supposed to be battles, and training, and sitting by himself by a oblong table eating solitary meals while trying not to think too hard about what his life has become, and now he’s the kriffing _new guy_ . The new guy who’s still wet behind his ears. The one who’s supposed to try to get to know these people like a normal person would do. Making small talk. As if that’s a natural thing. Who does that? Ordinary people, that’s who. And he’s – Well. _Him._

 

Anakin’s presence is with him. Matt can sense him regarding the display of normality with a curious unease of his own. What would his life have become had he not died when the Empire fell? He’d probably lived out the rest of it in a cell, Matt imagines, but his mind conjures up the image of a man having to deal with everyday life after so many years as an agent of the darkness. Formerly Darth Vader trying to blend in with the rest of the Rebels in some public dining hall.

 

Anakin gives him a mental nudge. An indication that however inane Matt’s life is about to become he’s not about to up and leave any time soon. Some reflex in him sneers at such a casual offering of reassurance, but somehow it’s enough.

 

So he walks in. A new man, a new person. Not Kylo Ren, not Ben Organa-Solo, just Matt.

 

Adilet lifts her head when she sees him. She nods to the chair by her side, and he takes the seat, not looking anyone in the eyes. She pushes a fresh plate in front of him as he sits down. It smells – not terrible.

 

“I thought you would like to know,” she says, “the girl went to Takodana.”

  


* * *

  


Life changes. It starts with a lot of sleep. Restless sleep, disturbed by all kinds of strange and unsettling dreams but sleep nonetheless. Each time he wakes up it’s like he never really rested at all. It’s like his mind is working overdrive and can’t shut down. He has to many thoughts, too much in his life he can’t make sense of anymore. While his mind craves unconsciousness to reorganize, it just can’t seem to stop itself from making up ghoulish scenarios in the process.

 

Anakin isn’t always there, but more often than not, in the time Matt spends recuperating he often wakes to the sense of his presence, like some ancient guardian at his bedside.

 

True fatigue has finally caught up with him, or maybe he’s just letting himself feel it for once. If battle, injury, pain and shock hasn’t put him into a state of exhaustion already then grief would have. Wishing he could take what he did back only leads to wishing it had worked the way it was supposed to do. Despite everything, when the day cycles changes into the next and the images of Han falling into the abyss keep him awake, seeking out the darkness again seems like a kriffing great idea after all. Which goes to show, he can’t even do a proper job of _failing_ to achieve what Snoke wanted for him.

 

More than once he startles awake, the knowledge that he’s betrayed his Master, the only person who ever cared about him resting like a lump of ice in his chest, and he begs Anakin to show him “the karking darkside damnit!” The answers he gets may differ, but the meaning stays the same; Darth Vader no longer exists. They’ve been over this before, “for kriff sake boy, I know I have all the time in the afterlife, but even ghosts get tired of repeating themselves.”

 

The desperate moods passes, they always do, but every single one of them leaves him with a hollow feeling, like there’s nothing where there once was something. The promise of a glorious future ripped away only because he’s fucking useless.

 

Rey stays in the back of his mind, muted and distant. When his thoughts race the worst he can sense her like one can see the yellow of a loth-cat’s eyes in the darkness, watching him. His ruminations must be loud because he can never help but draw at her attention. Ever since he chased her away, they’ve given each other wide berths. If she takes a wrong turn in her mind and ends up in the vicinity of his thoughts, she’ll simply remove herself, backing away without making a fuss. If it happens to him, more times than not he’s on the receiving end of a mental pushback before he has the chance to do the same. Mostly.

 

“Would you please just sleep!”

 

He opens his eyes to the sound of her voice in his head. The Halcyon had landed, rested and taken off from Gandle the day before, and he’d still been aboard. Matt stifles a yawn. Unconsciousness has eluded him for hours despite how tired he is.

 

He’s seeing double again. It’s like the cabin has been split in half, the side that doesn’t contain his bunk replaced with another room. She lies in her own bunk, her face hidden under the forearm slung across her eyes, an unhappy tilt to her mouth. Her hair fans across her thin pillow, as tangible as if he could reach across the narrow space between their bunks and pull his fingers through the strands. He’s pretty sure he’ll just grab through thin air if he did.

 

It strikes him how fragile her arms look without the bindings she’d worn, thin like twigs. But he knows firsthand how strong and vital they are despite the way she’s been living from hand to mouth for most of her life. She’s grown strong against all odds, a wild dandelion punching through duracreet.

 

She brings both her hands up to rub them over her eyes, yawning widely. Above the bend of her elbows he spots a faded mark in the wall; his own name scratched into the bulkhead of his father's ship. That’s _his_ bunk she’s sleeping in. That’s _his_ space. He turns his line of sight back to the nondescript ceiling in his own cabin, a strange sensation stirring in his stomach; an odd sense of having been replaced in a life he didn’t even want even while he had it.

 

In his peripheral vision she lowers her hands. She doesn’t look at all surprised to find their cabins spliced together, just notes his presence with resigned moroseness. Always one step ahead of him.

 

“Is this some new ploy? Keeping me awake?” she asks, her voice groggy.

 

“Does everything look like just another game to you?” he asks back.

 

“It seems to be your signature move from what I can tell.”

 

He turns to find her meeting his eyes with a defiant challenge, bright as a moon in the night sky. Kriff, how she can just twist him around like that. Just a scavenger? He must have been high on dreamdust or something when he said it, because he can definitely imagine peddlars pulling their hair out trying to barter with this girl who knows exactly what to say and how to say it.

 

He turns his back on her, settling on his side with his face to the wall, stifling a whinse as his shoulder protests the movement. “My apologies, _your highness_ ,” he says. “If I’d known I’d been keeping you awake I would have gone right to sleep immediately.”

 

She stays quiet for so long he might have expected to turn around to find her no longer there if it hadn’t been for the fact that he can still feel her, a prickle at his neck. He has the sense that she’s doing a little back and forth with herself, mulling over something like a puzzle.

 

“Why’d you do it?” she eventually says it in a whisper. If it hadn’t been for the bond he might not have heard her at all. There’s no twisting of the proverbial knife in it. It dawns on him she’s asking why he bereft her of the future his father had offered her, away from that wretched planet, only to offer something he’d known she’d never wanted. And blast it, what is it about this girl that has him do complete one-eighties in the fraction of a nanosecond? He could pour all his sins out in front of her and it would never be enough.

 

“What would you do if the people who left you to rot on that planet for fifteen years came back to get you?” he says after a moment.

 

She says nothing. The silence is tainted by unease on her side of the bond, but he takes little pleasure in knowing that he can in fact get through her hardened shell. The sound of her shifting in her bed reaches him, then her voice, muffled as if she’s speaking to her own wall.

 

“Kark off,” she says. “I’m nothing like you.”

 

“Definitely not,” he agrees. Maybe not. Maybe she’s not like him in all the ways that matter.

 

When Rey speaks again it’s difficult to tell if she just wants another jab in or if curiousity got the better of her.

 

“Was it worth it?”

 

He closes his eyes, the dark behind his lids replacing the gray bulkhead. “Go to sleep, Rey.”

 

It takes a while, but eventually she does.

  


* * *

  


He wakes to the smell of fresh salt air and the faint echo of the sound of birds. As he lies in his bunk the pieces come together. An island in an ocean. She found it. She found Luke. Her dreams had been prophetic.

 

Laughter bubbles its way up of Matt’s throat. Skywalker’s location. He had it all along.


	7. Being Matt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyday life happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thanks to everyone who's stayed with this story so far! Each chapter turns out so much longer than what I originally planed and this one is no different. Like chapter four and five I decided to split this one into two chapters as well. I got the next three pretty much planned out so hopefully they'll be easier to write. There are a couple of characters up ahead which I'm eager to introduce.
> 
> Thanks to tehanue for beta reading^^

“This is a sleeve.”

Standing in in the office that serves as Maer’s clinic Matt glances at the thing she just unfolded on the patient bench. It sure looks like one. The outside is sown from some sort of heavy, woven material. It looks as if she cut off an arm and the bottom half of the torso of a sweater and decided to present the remains to him as some ridiculous form of fashion statement.

“Did you give up on the rest of it?” he asks dryly.

Maer quirks her lips. “Careful now,” she says. “Someone might mistake that for a personality. It would go well that luscious hair of yours though.”

She puts her hands on her hips and faces him. “With your permission I’m going to use you as my guinea pig. My second one actually. I already put Zapf in one of these.” She picks up the fabric and holds it up to him. “This, as you might suspect, clever guy that you are, is an exo-prosthetic for your arm. I developed it myself. Low cost material. You won’t believe the amount of people out there who are in need of prosthetics but can’t afford to get them, let alone have the procedure.”

Matt eyes the sleeve again. It’s just a piece of cloth. He can’t see how it’s going to help him.

“No amputations then?” he says.

She grimaces. “For just a little nick? Stars no! We might not have a high tech medcenter here but we’re not savages.” Picking up the fabric she holds it up to him. “It’s supposed to go directly above your skin so I’m going to need you to strip.”

Matt coaxes himself out of his shirt with much more ease now than before. His bandages are long gone, his wounds healed by bacta, thought he’s still plagued by a lingering ache in his shoulder. Maer lets him pull the sleeve up his dead arm on his own, only giving him a hand when the part that goes across his upper chest gives him trouble. It’s tight, but flexible, and the inside is lined with smooth fabric that clings to him like a second skin. It feels odd, like it’s built from layers of different materials, and there’s something that’s decidedly not fabric worked into all of it. Once it’s on Maer takes a step back, evaluating her work.

“Try moving your hand,” she says.

How? By sheer force of will? His arm doesn’t feel any different, still numb except for the occasional tingle in his fingertips. Besides, she didn’t ask him to move his arm, but his hand, which is not covered by anything.

Maer nods encouragingly. “Go on. Just like you’ve always done.”

Alright then?

The muscle memory is gone. The knowledge that he could once use his arm is there, but it’s like the link between his brain and the limb has been severed, which is exactly what has happened.

Kriff that kriffing scavenger.

Matt orders his arm to move. The thought is like knocking his bare palm against a durasteel door.

His hand moves.

“I know right?” Maer says in response to his surprise, a self satisfied grin splitting her face. “You can’t feel it, but you can control it. Zapf used to hate it.”

Matt stares as his hand curls into a ball and bends at the wrist. The movement follows his arm upwards and soon the elbow is bending too.

“The short explanation is there are sensors around your spine that picks up the information that’s suppose to go to your arm,” Maer tells him. “It sends electrical signals to your muscles which causes them to contract, hence,” she gestures to her own creation, “movement! It’s going to take some getting used to, but it’ll come to you. Might take a while, but hey, at least you don’t have to relearn how to walk. Your brain will eventually get used to the proprioceptional sensory output it gives you.”

Experimentally he opens and closes his hand. “What’s powering it?”

A clever gleam crosses Maer’s eyes, as if he asked the one question she was dying to answer.

“You are,” she says.

Why of course he is. Who else would be powering his very own exo-prosthetic?

“Don’t worry,” Maer continues, “it uses no more energy that your arm would if it was fully functioning, so you don’t have to think about upping your calorie intake, which should be a great relief on us considering you already eat like a luggabeast. You need to be mindful of any injuries though, as the sensation in the hand won’t come back right away if it comes back at all, so just remember that. Now I’m going to let you wear this for a couple of hours, and then I’m going to do some adjustments, ok?”

Matt swings his arm around, testing the range of motion. I acts stiff and unwieldy. A sharp bolt of pain shoots through his shoulder as he reaches it upwards. He lets out a hiss and winces.

“Yeah, you might not want to start of by dangling off chandeliers right away,” Maer says. “Remember, that arm is still damaged. It’s not fixed just because you can move it around. Hey, do you know what the best part of this is?”

“No.”

“No muscle degradation.” Grinning Maer spreads her hands as if to congratulate herself. “The sleeve isn’t doing the movement for you, it’s helping you do it yourself.” She bumps the arm with the prosthetic on it with a loose fist. “You’re welcome!”

Matt relaxes his arm. It even falls stiffly.

He doesn’t know much about medicine, but this looks like really advanced technology. He’s never seen anything like it. Prosthetics of many kinds sure, but not like this one. It’s one thing to have the resources and material to create such a thing, but entirely another how and where Maer got the skills to build it.

“Why are you on this ship?” he asks her.

A rueful expression crosses Maer’s face. “You mean why am I not in one of the great medcenters on Coruscant or some other high prestigious place?” She picks up Matt’s shirt from the patient bench and hands it to him. He takes it automatically with his left hand. “Got fired,” she says with a shrug. “Turns out no one appreciates it when you refuse to let a stormtrooper that got brought in by mistake die.”

He walks out of her clinic with an arm that might function oddly for now, but at least it is functioning. It’s not a complete recovery, and there’s nothing she can do to fix his concussion, bring him back to full strength as it were, except ordering him to rest when he needs it. But it’s something, he guesses, even if it’s not the Force.

Maer’s put him on some sort of recovery schedule. At first Matt had railed against it, but after spending an entire standard cycle in his bunk with the kriffing lights from the chronometer threatening to poke his kriffing eyes out in his otherwise dark room he learned that not following the doctor’s orders is as good as repeatedly knocking his head against duracrete. Having a concussion is a trip and a half.

He’s getting better though, but his returning health is doing nothing to heal the gap between the Force and himself. It’s still there behind that wall of broken glass in his mind, a big karking tease just beyond his grasp.

There are days when it feels like it’s no good. If he’s going to put a spoke in Hux’s wheels he’s going to need more than an arm he can barely control. When he puts these thoughts into words, however, Anakin has the grace to mention that of the worst troublemakers that ever made his life as Darth Vader difficult, very few had the Force to begin with.

In times long past Leia had told him stories of what the rebels got up to under the reign of the Empire. Rarely stories about herself, or Han or Luke, but stories about others. Always this focus on others, people Ben had never known. Whenever he spun heroic tales about his family, he would always end up sorely disappointed by reality. The stories Leia told tended to end in ruin.

There had been one about this group, this ragtag team that had brought the plans for the first Death Star into the hands of the Rebel Alliance. He’d hated it. Where was the victorious ending? Or the stories about the heroes living happily ever after? Instead there was just destruction and death. Deserters and fools going against forces much bigger than themselves.

Something about it snags at Matt’s attention now thought, the idea that if a group of Force-less people can cause so much mayhem, why not he? They say director Krennic had been roasted alive along with the rest of Scarif for his failures. The idea of Hux meeting the same fate in one way or another? It lights a fire in Matt like nothing else.

But for now, he’s on the Halcyon. Healing is his first priority. Vengeance will come later.

The first time Matt walks back into the Zapf’s little repair shop, prepared to give him some measly apology for the last incident, under orders from Anakin no less, the stuttering mechanic doesn’t wait for him to even open his mouth before chucking another wrench at him. Then, once that’s over with, he directs Matt to another malfunctioning droid. Matt quickly learns that Zapf works in silence or not at all.

It’s a relief.

Fixing droids is familiar work, even if he’s rusty. It’s not as if Kylo Ren would get tasked with reprogramming bad tempered machinery, when his skills with a sabre and ability to wield the Force could be put to good use on a battlefield. However nothing his former Master ever taught him would have prepared him for life on the Halcyon. No, those skills came from elsewhere.

If Han had taught him about ships and how to not shoot himself in the foot when handling a blaster, then Luke Skywalker was the one who’d shown him how to fix a droid. Even Leia Organa, ever the politician, had known something about engineering as well as ships, and it’s with a stubborn resentment Matt has to admit to himself he might have been homeless on some muddy street somewhere back on Karideph if it hadn’t been for them. At least they managed to do one thing right. With the grace of the Force he intends to stay on the Halcyon. At least for a while.

As long as no one asks him to fix an actual radar. He knows absolutely nothing about radars.

To his great relief the rest of the crew allows him his space. Getting along isn’t difficult. He wasn’t raised without manners painstakingly nurtured into him. Old habits die hard, and apparently even becoming a Knight of Ren couldn’t kill this particular one.

Out of all the crew, Maer is the one who gives him the most trouble, hunting him down if he doesn’t rest enough, and always lecturing him about the dangers of developing concussion syndrome every chance she gets. Luckily, Nine stays out of Matt’s sight most of the time.

The pilot, Jagger, turns out to be the pink faced young man who sat besides Adilet at Matt’s first meal in the mess. It’s impossible to get past the guy in the hallways without getting a cheery ‘hey mate’ or ‘pall! or ‘buddy!” thrown his way. The man is just so kriffing perky Matt feels a pressing need to avoid him every chance he gets.

What is worse, the guy’s a kriffing pilot nerd, knowing everything about piloting and every known pilot in the known history of the galaxy. Which is how Matt has the nightmarish experience of having to witness him having a kriffing meltdown one day over breakfast, when the Holo News finally reports that Han Solo has been killed in action.

The whole thing comes completely out of left field. One moment Matt’s just sitting there listening to the odd conversation that usually goes on between his crewmates and suddenly his father’s name is spoken and there’s his face too. All over the news like some terrible practical joke. All of a sudden the open space of the mess becomes a suffocating box, and he wants is to run. To take one of the Halcyon’s life-shuttles and take off towards the outer rim.

He’s in the middle of contemplating the best way to get the hell out of the mess as fast as humanly possible ‒ insulting Nine or just start throwing punches ‒ when Anakin pipes up, tries to have him correct Jagger who’s just stated Han made the Kesser Run in about thirteen parsecs instead of just under twelve. Just how and why Anakin has taken such an interest in his father’s accomplishments is beyond Matt. All he knows is that he has to spend the rest of the day listening to Anakin’s ramblings about just because he’s dead it doesn’t mean he has to stop being interested in everything he enjoyed while he lived. “I used to be be a pretty good pilot once you know. Passions like that just don’t go away because you stop breathing. You don’t know what it’s like being dead until you’ve been there!”

Then there’s Pia, the engine mechanic, who appears to be around five or six months pregnant. In the beginning she doesn’t give a damn about the new addition to her crewmates and Matt thanks the stars for small favours; one more person he doesn’t have to make small talk with. It lasts until Pia catches him checking out the machinery room on a night he’d given up on sleep. Not only does she deduct his interest in the ship’s engine, but after having made the discovery she won’t karking shut up about the subject whenever he’s around. The worst part however, is that during all her questioning and ramblings Matt accidentally let it slip that his father used to own a light freighter. It might have gone right over her head however, because all she says is ‘sweet’ then she goes on about the modifications she’s made to the hyperdrive.

Ress and Tull ‒ or Ressantull as they might as well be named as they appear to be attached at the hip ‒ somehow does not have any designated work as far as Matt can tell. Unless said work is maintaining blasters and acting as firepower auxiliary if the clientele they’re dealing with acts particularly untrustworthy. Matt never learns who is who out of the two, because they’re always addressed in union instead of separately and nobody bothers to explain it to him.

Normal life is kriffing bizarre.

So it goes. Matt heals, sleeps, eats, and if Maer allows him, works. The first period of time goes by like that in a haze. He might as well be on autopilot. There comes a day when he wakes up and realizes he’s been on the Halcyon for weeks. He looks in the mirror and sees a scar that has paled from the angry red it used to be. He gets dressed, putting the prosthetic sleeve on first, then his clothes; pants, shirt, shoes. He eats meals with the crew, he works alongside Zapf, and he sleeps in his own cabin at night.

There are days it scares him kriffing shitless just how easy life is. The demands that are made of him are simple, get up in the morning, do his job, eat his vegetables. Disapearing into this life and never emerge again would be easy as long as he keeps his head down. Out of all the things that are expected of him, Maer’s demands that Matt will allow himself the time to heal happens to be his greatest challenge by far.

But he’s not the only one who thinks it should be harder. For all Anakin’s words about wanting Matt to go his own way, he isn’t happy about the part where he has made no plans to contact his mother.

“I’m not saying you should see her face to face,” Anakin says. They’re in the repair shop, and Matt is fiddling with one of the spindly arm of an old WED Treadwell. “I just don’t understand why you won’t let her know that you’re on their side now.”

“I’m not on the side of the Resistance,” Matt corrects, silently and inside his head just to be sure. Zapf’s sitting right there across the room with the exploded parts of a project of his that doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere in the weeks that have passed. The robotic arm on wheels hovers by Matt’s side, hanging around as if hoping for a opportunity to help in case his prosthetic acts out. It hasn’t yet, in fact it works perfectly.

“I’m evening out the playing field,” Matt says. “That’s it.”

“Evening out the playing field by planning to demolish the weapons of their enemies? I’m pretty sure that counts as being on their side.”

“Don’t start this again.”

“She’s your mother!”

“Yes, and look how far that got us.”

“Hey now...”

“I was not the one who cut ties first, so kriffing drop it alright.” Matt opens up the panel underneath the WED’s arms with more force than necessary and reaches inside. “Why is this so important to you anyway?”

“Wrong wire,” says Anakin.

“What?”

“That’s the wrong wire. You can’t hardwire these old WED’s like they do those fancy newer models.”

Matt frowns at what he’s doing.

“They don’t make droids like this anymore,” Anakin says. “Those new models are just too damn delicate. No use when it comes to proper hard work.”

“Are you telling me you know how to fix droids now?”

“Know how? I built one for my mother when I was ten.”

Over on his side of the shop Zapf coughts. Matt glances over to see the old fellow still hanging over his work in concentration.

He has the slightest inkling there’s been mentions of a mother before, back when he was lying injured in the snow on Starkiller and still insisting on calling his grandfather Darth Vader.

“You had a mother?” he says now.

Anakin hums and haws. “No, actually I was born out of the ether, fully formed, cape, mask and everything.”

Matt huffs. “What happened to her?”

“She died,” says Anakin and leaves it at that. Matt is about to ask another question when the ghost’s energy changes, turning into rapt attention.

It’s become like an alert, the way Anakin has tuned himself into knowing exactly when Matt is about to have an encounter with Rey. Sure enough, the next second he finds himself mind to mind with the girl in question, like they’ve both walked around a corner and right smack into each other.

“Oh bother,” she says dryly, the usual irritation radiating through their connection.

If Anakin had a head, Matt’s sure he would have been cocking it to the side while listening. He sure had taken an interest in the bond once he learned about the girl who’d caused the state of damage he’d found Matt in on Starkiller.

“Has Skywalker agreed to train you yet?” Matt asks Rey before she can cut him off like she usually does. She never admitted as much, but he’s been able to fit together the bits and pieces from their not so amicable conversations so far.

“Like you’d care.”

 

“Yeah well I guess that old fraud wouldn’t see reason if it slapped him in the face.”

By Matt side Anakin’s energy bristles minutely. They’ve been over the subject of Luke again and again. It’s not Matt’s fault Anakin sees Skywalker as some sort of saviour figure. So far they’ve only grudgingly agreed to disagree.

“Something that runs in the family, I’ve learned,” Rey says pointedly.

  1. Matt huffs, but an involuntary smile pulls at his mouth. Despite her constant need to goad him he has to admit, she can be funny.



This conversation has already gone on for far longer than what she usually allows, so he tries his luck and goes on. “You really can’t help yourself can you?” he says.  
  
“But you make it so easy.”

“No wonder Skywalker won’t teach you with an attitude like that.”

“Oh no, I only act like this when I’m talking to the megalomaniac who kidnapped me.” She gives Matt the mental version of a flick between his eyes. He resurfaces with a low grunt, back in the repair shop again.

“She keeps running laps around you, that one” Anakin says.

“Shut up, grandpa.”

 

* * *

 

With life on the Halcyon comes other tasks than what’s not specifically his job. There’s droids that do the maintenance and the cleaning. Matt pretty much doesn’t have much else to do besides work, and remembering what it means to act as if he’s not in the First Order anymore, in addition to keeping his own cabin tidy. Once in awhile, however, there’s Dinner Night, and when there’s Dinner Night everyone takes their turn planning the menu and preparing the meal. When Adilet suggest with some apprehension Matt doesn’t have to when his turn comes around he ignores her. He will take any opportunity to avoid having to eat the disgusting gruel some of the crew has come up with so far. Besides as far as tasks go cooking isn’t even half bad. He never got to do it in the First Order.

“What sector in the F.O. did you say you worked in again?” Nine asks, eyeing the steamed, lemon-buttered asparagus on his fork.

“I didn’t,” Matt answers.

“Oh,” Nine says “Good we got that cleared up.”

“This is really good!” Jagger tells Matt, talking through a mouthful of mogos steak. By his side Zapf nods, silently agreeing. Matt keeps his thoughts on the disaster of a risotto Jagger had made the other week to himself.

The fleeting look Nine sends his way carries a hint of suspicion, but it’s gone so fast it may not even have been there to begin with. Even so Matt adapts a flat mask and focuses his eyes on his plate instead of the loadmaster.

“Hey, hush!” Maer tells them. She’s got her eyes on the HoloNews which is always on in the corner. “Look.”

This isn’t the first time meals has been interrupted by broadcasts. New information about the First Order’s advances across the galaxy comes out of the Net nearly every day. The mood among the crew becomes pressing on those days. It’s as though the shock of the Hosnian system’s destruction never gets to quite settle. Matt always watches with a boiling sensation in his stomach, picturing Hux choking on his own dinner.

Today’s broadcast is like every other broadcast, another planet close to the core under siege, only this time news reader speaks of sightings on the battlefield of the Knights of Ren.

“Oh look, they’re all there,” Nine says. There are indeed seven figures on the holo. Matt frowns. All of them? But he’s right here. The dark splotches can literally be anybody. Only someone as familiar with the Knights as he is can make them out at that distance. That one blotch right there is obviously the sniper. Or maybe the Heavy? Might be the Rogue.

“Too bad,” Nine goes on, “here I was hoping they all kicked it when that kriffing planet blew up.”

“Did you ever meet one of them?” Pia asks. It’s not clear who she’s talking to, Matt, Nine or both, but Nine is the one who answers.

“Nope,” he says. “Ran past that Monk guy once. Kriffing creepo.” He shakes his head as if a shiver of disgust just ran through him. “If they don’t kill you on a mere whim, they do their darndest to make you soil your pants. Every trooper knows they’re assholes, every single one of them. Especially that main guy.”

“Who? Kylo Ren?”

Matt turns his eyes back to his plate again, concentrating hard on his asparagus. The look some of the people around him sends his way, as if they’re trying to ignore his reaction but just can’t help themselves, alarms him. No one here knows, he tells himself. He’s Matt the radar technician. No one knows.

Do they?

“Him yeah.” Nine grimaces for emphasis. “Kriffing nightmare that one. I heard about more than a few buckets who pissed their armour when they had to go near him. He’s karking volatile even for a Knight.”

“H-heard he w-w-was shredded thought,” Zapf mumbles as if to himself, pushing some food around on his plate and stabbing a potato.

Jagger spits his mouthful of water across the table. At the other end Ress and Tull are both openly snickering. Maer looks away, but not before Matt gets a glimpse of the pained but amused look on her face. Nine on the other hand just puts a hand to his nose as he shakes his head.

Matt’s ears turns warm beneath his hair. He has the odd feeling he’s supposed to make sense of what Zapf just said.

“Al right guys,” Adilet says, her tone stern yet there’s a glint in her eyes. “Enough now.”

 

* * *

 

That night, because he can’t sleep, Matt goes through the radar technician’s pockets again. He never did throw the ruined remnants of the clothes away, and no one has done it for him.

He finds the old glasses and tries them on only to discover there are no actual lenses in the frames. Shaking his head bemusedly he tosses them back into the pile. In the big pocket on the back piece of the tool-vest, he finds even more used paper tissue, something hard he suspects might have been edible at some point, and a small note book.

Again this is all stuff not a single First Order employee would ever have access to. This person whose identity he has taken is one bewildering fellow. That is, if the real Matt is still alive.

The pages are all stained in one corner by what smells like old kaff, curling the flimsies as they stick together. Sitting down on his bed, leaning up against the wall with a foot propped up on the chair, Matt opens the thing at random.

It reads like a diary, a very pathetic one at that. How the First Order could survive by hiring such a poor excuse for a technician is beyond Matt, but he chalks it down to one of Hux’s many, many shortcomings. The real Matt doesn’t even know what a calcinator is.

He flipp through the book and comes to a stop as he sees his own name ‒ Kylo Ren ‒ mentioned more than once over the course of several sentences, like a poorly constructed word rhyme.

 

 

 

> ‘Today when we were eating Tim said in front of everybody that Kylo Ren looks like a punk bitch. He said Kylo Ren looks like he weighs thirty pounds soaking wet, and Zack laughed at his mean joke. I told him a friend of mine saw Kylo Ren in the shower. That Kylo Ren has an eight pack. But Tim and Zack laughed even more at me, so I said Kylo Ren is shredded.’

Matt closes the book. Tossing it to the floor he sags further down on the bed. Heat gathers in his face, and he brings his hands up to cover his eyes. Out of all the shit he’s been through over the course of his lifetime, this might actually be the one thing that kills him.

He goes back to bed, and fall asleep to questions of how someone like Real Matt could ever have survived a place like the First Order. In his dreams he’s on his hands and knees in front of an open panel, rummaging inside for something he has no idea what is. Some woman stands above him yelling about not having had her muffin yet. Stress turns to anger, and Kylo Ren rises, the red saber in his hands and ‒

Stay here I’ll come back for you.

‒ The woman is gone. In front of him stands a scrawny boy with sunken eyes, dressed in dirty linens. “Give me that,” the boy says, snatching his hand forward. He ‒ Matt ‒ looks down and finds a calcinator clutched between his finger instead of his saber.

“Please! Give it to me, I’m so hungry.” The boy reaches for it again and Matt recoils ‒

I’ll come back sweetheart, I promise.

‒ A cool gust blows through the empty halls of the downed Star Destroyer. He stands by the edge of a steep fall, looking down into dark nothingness. He has to go down there, there’s no other way to know, but instead he ‒

I’m here! Right here! Where are you?

‒ turns to find that the ginger haired General has walked up besides him on the Finalizer’s bridge. Hux frowns at a datapad as Lieutenant Mitaka briefs him on an incident with a stolen TIE-fighter. The general looks up, sees Matt there. His nose wrinkles as if detecting something rotten is in the air. “Another Ren is it?” he says. “That’s timely. Our consoles were due for another upgrade after all.”

You’re here for a reason scavenger. Might as well pay your dues.

Matt whirls, and almost bangs his head against a low durasteel ceiling. The rusty and weathered surroundings bear a hint of homeliness. There’s a dried flower in a makeshift vase, and a hammock hanging between two beams. Scratches on the wall counting the days….

There’s a soft snivel behind him. At first he can’t see her when he turns, her clothes saturated by the desert just as it has her home. And she’s small. So young. Barely even a teenager.

Rey sits hunched behind a crate in the corner with her back to the open room, wiping her eyes and nose with her bare palm. The tiny body shakes, her three buns softly quivering. Her hand comes up to the side of her head. As he watches she curls it into a fist and knocks the knuckles against her scalp.

“Bad, bad, bad!”

A knot forms in Matt’s stomach. He’s not suppose to see this, is he?

Taking a step forward he says, “hey.”

She hits herself again. “Bad, bad, bad!”

Within less than five steps he’s at her side and just as her hand curls tight again ‒ bad, bad, bad ‒ he grabs her by the wrist. “Stop that!”

Rey reacts immediately. She spins around, gasping in shock, her eyes wide with fright and ‒

‒ Matt wakes up.

His eyes open to the darkness of his cabbin. The dream has scrambled reality and it takes several seconds before he can make sense of where he is. The faint light of the chrono above his door has vanished.

Matt freezes. Something has changed. The sudden smell of salt in the air and the remnants of molten rock; the calm heartbeat that is not his own, the soft inhale and exhale of breath, and the pitch black shadow of a Knight in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the lines from the dream sequence is from Rey's force vision in the TFA novelization.


	8. The Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which something troublesome this way comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this out! I had every intention of this being a longer chapter, but at some point I realized it was getting too long and so I cut it in half. On the bright side this means I'm almost one and a half chapter ahead, and you'll get to read the next one sooner rather than later.
> 
> As always thanks to TehanuFromEarthSea for her helpful comments and for catching all my typos!

****Reflexes kicks in. Matt’s reaction is a swift and sudden as when he called himself Kylo Ren. The fever of focus honed over many years of training floods his veins and ignites his brain neurons. As the Knight rises from the dark shadows he lets it consume him. He jumps into action.

 

Too bad he’s out of practice.

 

Too bad he doesn’t wear the prosthetic at night.

 

In a move that’s suppose to fluently bring him to his feet Matt loses his balance halfway out of his bunk and crashes onto the floor, landing on his injured shoulder.

 

For a second he can’t breathe. His entire side is screaming. His consciousness narrows down to that one part of his body, forgetting all about his surroundings. He opens his bleary eyes to the dark interior of what looks like a brick hut, the sound of someone crying out ringing in his head.

 

He blinks –

 

– and is back in his cabin in the Halcyon. The lights from the chronometer shines back at him from above the door, illuminating the completely empty space. He blinks again.

 

_Rey’s breath comes in gasps as she clutches her shoulder. A dark shadow looms above her, but she can hardly see it through tears of pain. Her shoulder. Oh kriff, her shoulder!_

 

“No,” Matt says out loud. They were suppose to come for him. _He’s_ the hunted one, not her. This is _his_ fight, but instead of springing into battle he’s watching from across lightyears as the Knight of Ren advances on Rey from the darkness. A red blade ignites.

 

“Get up”, he says. “Get up, get up, _get up!”_

 

_Rey’s arm rises, shivering like a leaf in the breeze as she moves against the pain. She holds her hand up towards the silver gleam in the Knight’s mask and reaches on instinct for the Force._

 

_Get out of my head!_

 

And she’s gone.

 

Panting, Matt pushes himself up to a sitting position and faces the empty room. He’s alone.

 

He’s alone and Rey’s not.

 

Closing his eyes he pulls at the wires of her mind, frantically grasping for a way back, but her thoughts are bared to him. Oh she’s there, like strings of meat on a serrated blade Rey is always there, but all he gets from their bond is the faint impression that something urgent and violent is going down on her side.

 

“Anakin!” he calls into the darkness, his voice shaken, and still hoarse from sleep.

 

The ghost’s signature comes to life, unfolding like a rolling storm over wild ground. It’s as if he’s been there all along and Matt just woke him from a state of dormancy. The hairs on his neck stand on edge with the sudden feeling of being targeted by the glowing eyes of a creature in the darkness.

 

“Rey!” is what he manages to get out, as if Anakin is suppose to understand without an explanation. “Luke!”

 

It works, because the next second the cause of his agitation is picked from his mind, and Anakin’s signature flares. A sensation like a strong wind goes through the room and with it he disappears, gone as sudden as he had awoken. The air around Matt settles, and for the second time within just a few moments he finds himself alone.

 

The silence that follows is deafening.

 

 

* * *

 

He gets as far as the door to the life-shuttle before reason takes over. What does he think he’s going to do? Take the thing and just zip right over? The shuttle will only get him to the closest place he can refuel, and that alone could take an entire day cycle. He can’t exactly take the chance that Rey’s location just happens to be merely a solar system away. Besides, even if by some stroke of luck he managed to get there in time, what is he going to do? Throw headaches at her assailants? And even if the Knights of Ren – because there will be more than one – don’t kill him first, Rey or Luke certainly will.

 

Matt straightened his shirt, which he’d pulled on in a hurry along with the rest of his clothes before leaving his cabin. He’d almost strangled himself with the prosthetic sleeve in his haste to get dressed. Pushing his hands over his face and through his hair he starts pacing back and forth in front of the life-shuttle.

 

Rey’s not letting him in, but a feverish taste of battle still emits from her end of the bond. He doesn’t know what sets him on edge more, her racing adrenaline or the fact that he’s blocked from aiding her. Muted sensations still make their way to his end, the sting of burning lungs and muscles and something that’s definitely the wound from a lightsaber across her forearm. He’s learned first hand that Rey can hold her own, he tells himself over and over, but that won’t change what happens when she eventually ends up against an opponent she doesn’t have the skill to defeat.

 

Blind frustration clouds his vision. Matt whirls around in the middle of his pacing and kicks the door to the life-shuttles.

 

_Fucking damnit._

 

He kicks and he kicks until his feet protest and then he punches the door instead for good measure.

 

Two or three punches in there’s movement in his periphery vision. Matt snaps his head to the side to find Zapf standing there with a mug in hand, looking him up and down as if this kind of behaviour is nothing unusual. The old man comes shuffling over.

 

“Mess,” he mumbles, and continues past Matt. “L-lets get caf.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re getting out today,” Zapf says as he places a new cup in front of Matt, filled to the brim with hot beverage. He then saunters over to a cupboard in the kitchen area and comes back with a medicine kit. “Hand,” he grunts.

 

Matt looks down and flinches. The knuckles of his right hand run red with blood, dark spots soaking into his pant leg. He clenches and unclenches the digits, not feeling a thing.

 

There’s still a sense of stress coming through from Rey’s end of the bond, but somewhere between the life-shuttle and the mess the battle-fever had come to an end. This does nothing to calm Matt however. He knows the difference between the relief of a fight well ended and a reprieve.

 

Zapf fishes out an old and battered bio scanner and holds it over Matt’s hand for a second. It beeps and he tosses it back into the kit again.

 

“N-n-no fractures,” he states matter of factly. “I’m t-telling Adilet you’re g-going on the sup-p-ply run with Nine today.” Without warning he upends a bottle of antiseptics on Matt’s knuckles. Matt holds back a curse as he jumps in his chair to avoid the content splashing everywhere.

 

“Why?” he asks. It sounds petulant even to his own ears. Zapf might as well be asking for a disaster. It’s no secret that Nine hates Matt.

 

“You got ca-ca-ca-,” deep breath, “cabin fever,” Zapf says, dabbing at his knuckles with some random rag he found in the med kit. “You keep snapping at my droids. They’re all developing a-a-anxiety.” He gestures over to one of the cleaning droid Matt had worked on last week, standing somberly in the darkest corner of the mess, clearly switched off.

 

Zapf overlooks Matt’s slight huff at this, and pulls out a bacta patch. He opens it with his teeth and slaps it bacta side down onto Matt’s knuckles, finishing it off with tape that he finds in the inner pocket of his vest. “Also,” he adds, “yer t-t-t –” another deep breath, “talking to yourself.”

 

He does what? For a terrible moment Matt scrambles for an explanation for whatever thing he might have said out loud. Damn Anakin and his blabbering. Zapf however settles in his own chair with an air of finality, taking his mug in hand, and switches on the HoloNews.

 

He’s not gonna… They’re not... No? Okay….

 

Right then.

 

As the silence stretches out Zapf continues to show all signs of ignoring him. Matt takes a sip of his own caf in some halfhearted effort to calm his nerves. It tastes like dust in his mouth.

 

What’s taking Anakin so long? He’s already demonstrated how time can be an issue to the dead, but does the same go for space? Does the ghost even know where he’s going?

 

Matt stares into the swirling contents of his cup. Rey is on the move. Her breathlessness is affecting him. Even as he sits still his heart is pounding in his chest. If he closes his eyes he can sense wind against his face, and the faint sound of waves whispers in his mind.

 

_What are you doing girl?_

 

Planting his elbows on the table Matt puts his face in his hands. Why does he care so much? He doesn’t fucking owe her anything so how come it affects him this way when her life is suddenly in peril?

 

_What’s taking you so long Anakin?_

 

Images from the dream swim back into his consciousness, having been pushed aside by the arrival of the Knight earlier. Rey in her childhood, hiding in what passes for a home in the Jakku wastelands, punishing herself. For what? He already knew her life on that forsaken planet was miserable, and the Maker knows why she stayed, and even wished to go back when she was finally lightyears away from it. What he’d seen in their shared dream, it somehow seems so achingly familiar in a way he decides he won’t examine.

 

Sometimes dreams are just dreams.

 

“What’s ailing you son?”

 

Matt looks up. Zapf’s studying him from his place around the table.

 

“What makes you think something’s bothering me?” Matt retorts.

 

“You’re twitching.”

 

His feet are indeed bouncing on the balls of their toes as if just waiting for the opportunity to carry him out of there. Matt quiets them, but the frustrated energy doesn’t fall silent as easily.

 

“You have no control over your life,” Zapf says. “You’re healing from a bad incident. You barely got anything to call your own and it was never your intention to end up here.”

 

Matt clenches his jaw. “What do you know about it?”

 

“Killed my own pa when I was but a wee lad.”

 

That hits him like a sudden gust of cold wind down his neck. Matt swallows. His heart has sunk into his stomach, as if Zapf has taken a scalpel and opened him up to rearrange his guts.

 

“Regretted it instantly,” Zapf continues. “Funny that. He came at me with a butcher’s knife yah know. All the old man ever gave me was b-b-b-b-b-” deep breath, “brain damage.”

 

Zapf glances towards the HoloNews for a second, sipping his caf. “Sometimes life deals you a bad hand. Maybe you lose some good cards, or you gain some bad, blah, blah, blah…” He waves his hand for emphasis. “What I’m saying is there’s no point in sitting around in your own s-s-shit regretting the things you’ve done. Accept the things you can’t change and fix the once you can. Or some shit like that. K-ken?”

 

Matt doesn’t say a word. As long as he’s without the Force he’s never turning his back on this guy again.

 

* * *

 

 

“I want that one. No, _that_ one. _No!_ Oh for kriff’s sake. Alright, just put it the pile.”

 

Matt bites back several insults as the little round alien places another item he has not asked for on the counter. He’s never met an individual of this species, and this particular one does not appear to speak Basic or any other language he knows, communicating only through a series of clicks and gurgles and a lot of unfamiliar gesturing. On the long shopping list Maer’s handed to him the only thing Matt recognizes is his own pain medication.

 

“Zapf finally kicked you out, huh,”  Nine had noted when it was made clear that Matt was going with him on the supply run. Before Matt could interpret it as another insult he’d added, “The old bloke usually gets sick of people much sooner than this. You must have made an impression.”

 

Matt hadn’t replied. The ex-trooper was making an effort to be friendly again. Better not encourage it. Nine had suggested they’d split up to make things go faster, and while that was true, he’d walked away mumbling about certain people being more unbearable than usual.

 

Matt pays for his purchase – carefully picking what he doesn’t need out of the pile before the alien can charge him for them – and gets out of the shop.

 

Few lifeforms walk the streets of the outer edges of the only megacity of Riche, a place more reminiscent of an endless marketplace than it is an actual city. The pale sunlight of morning paints a stark contrast to the sensation of rain against his skin. The weather is dry, in fact the city looks as if it hasn’t seen downpour for weeks. The rain he feels is happening somewhere else. Somewhere he has no way of reaching in time even if he had the fastest ship in the galaxy.

 

Matt reaches the Lugga, which is the speeder the Halcyon crew uses for supply runs. He opens a storage compartment in its rear end and dutifully leaves his haul inside. Then he slams the lid shut, and walks around the speeder. Crossing his arms in front he plants his ass back on the vehicle’s front with a grumble. He’s done his part, now all that’s left is wait for Nine to return from wherever he wandered off to.

 

Matt kicks the dirt at his feet and sighs. He used to be The Supreme Leader’s right hand and now he’s running errands for a bunch of freebooters.

 

Freebooters whom he owes his life to, as Anakin would tell him.

 

At least a quarter of a day has gone by and Matt hasn’t heard a single word from Anakin since that morning. His bond with Rey still doesn’t betray much either. As the day’s stretched out he’s begun to suspect she’s somehow lost her attacker and maybe even found a hiding spot. She might not be fighting right now, but it doesn’t feel like victory has been secured yet.

 

How did the Knights even know where she and Luke are? How ironic that, if he hadn’t left the Knights of Ren he’d have been on that island with them, maybe doing damage from the inside. Or maybe he’d still be following orders? It hits him now how easily his allegiance with the Knights has been broken. He might have had second thoughts about not returning to Snoke’s side, but when it comes to the Knights of Ren he hasn’t looked back.

 

If there was camaraderie in their band of acolytes of the darkness, it only stretched as far as the reach of their weapons. While being a part of the Knights demanded unyielding fealty, backstabbing was as much a part of their lives as acting as a single body of chaos was. He doesn’t miss it. Kriff, he doesn’t even know how he ended up being their leader.

 

A prickle irritates the back of his neck. Matt scratches the spot and looks around. When they landed on Riche his senses had started going haywire. It’s Rey of course. She might be a novice with the Force but Maker, she learns fast. Maybe she was always attuned to it without actually knowing. Nevertheless, even if he’s blocked these things still slip through, and they’re frustrating as fuck. If something happens all he can do is watch.

 

Nine is taking his sweet time. What’s taking the man so long? Never mind that it’s only been about half an hour. If Matt’s here and ready to leave so should he. With a huff he pushes off the Lugga and starts walking, forcing a green alien to jump out of the way in the otherwise nearly empty area as he stomps by.

 

He gets about twenty paces down the street when sudden vertigo hits him. A Twi’lek protests his proximity to their speeder as he blindly reaches out for support. Matt stumbles away from the vehicle. He gets himself over to the closest shop with a display of strange and unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, and leans against the wall.

 

He hasn’t had any symptom of a concussion for weeks, but this is nothing like the bouts of dizziness he until recently has been prone to. It’d had been more like losing his bearings and falling off of a high place. Shaking his head to get rid of the strange disorientation, he closes his eyes for just a moment.

 

_She hangs by the fingertips of one hand, the wind whipping her unbound hair into her face. Her fingers slip against the wet rock, and she can barely see in the gray light of a sun that has only just started to rise. Down below there’s more water than she thought possible, and above, the burning light of a red blade. Rey gains her foothold, and clings to the cliff._

 

Matt blinks his eyes open. There’s a prickle at his neck again, only stronger, like it’s a physical prod. His nerves are already on edge from what he just saw, but now paranoia creeps through. There’s no more lifeforms crowding the street than there were moments ago, and yet his palms are suddenly sweating.

 

_Walk._

 

He starts to move, setting a fast pace just short of running. The prickle grows to an itch and for the first time in weeks Matt reaches for the Force, but it’s no good. Attempting to wield it is like putting needles through his own skull. He winces, and lets go of the attempt before it makes matters worse.

 

_Kriff, Anakin where are you?_

 

There’s a moment of panic from Rey’s side, like she’s lost her footing and only just regains it.

 

_On second thought just stay where you are, Anakin._

 

He would have wiped his head around and look for potential followers if it had not been a sign of suspicion. What he can do is listen. Like he did when he’s sensed the children in the crate, he could let the Force tell him what he needs to know. Devoid of a calm mind, however, it comes slowly to him. This was never how he dealt with the Force back when he could actually use it. It was usually just a matter of twisting it to his will.

 

There are more heartbeats than there are life forms in the streets. From the buildings all around him he gets a jumble of sensations and emotions. Whoever this person is, if they’re real at all, they know how to hide.

 

Matt rounds a corner into a side alley and –

 

_An invisible force grabs her by her throat. Without warning she’s pulled from her hiding place and into the outstretched hand of her shrouded stalker. Rey’s feet dangle over the cliff's edge. She grabs hold of the Knight’s wrist as her only purchase._

 

_Shit._

 

_That’s a long way down._

 

_She can’t even swim._

 

_Her hold on him tightens to a desperate clutch as his own grip loosens. The mask’s modulator twists his short huff of a laugh as he cocks his head to one side. The light from the sun just below the horizon grows brighter, illuminating the mask of Kylo Ren._

 

_So the supreme asshole actually came after her. Kark the Maker, how swell._

 

_She kicks him. Right where it hurts the most. The Master of Ren cries out as he drops her, and Rey lands against the cliff’s edge, the rock scraping her shins and knees as she scrambles for a handhold._

 

“Hey Matt. _Matt?_ You alright?”

 

Matt lifts his head from where he’s been holding it against his palm, and blinks up at a concerned looking Nine. The loadmaster stands in the middle of the alley, holding a package that’s meant for Pia’s engine room.

 

Kylo Ren? That’s not right. He’s here. Kylo Ren is right here!

 

“Hey man can you hear me?”

 

That’s when he senses it, a familiar signature in the Force. Somewhere nearby and not far behind.

 

No, not that one. Anyone but kriffing _her._

 

“Maybe we should get back to…. Hey, where are you going?” Nine turns after him as Matt walks past.

 

“We need to get out of here.”

 

“Yeah ok, but the Lugga is _that_ way.” Nine indicates the opposite direction.

 

Matt continues on.

 

Then freezes.

 

No, not freezes. Gets frozen in place with the Force.

 

Behind him Nine makes a surprised sound before he’s cut off, but there’s no thud of a fallen body. The sound of her footsteps and muffled breath reaches Matt before he can see her. Then she comes into his line of sight; her roughly woven coat, her checkered mask, and her all around deviously wild aura of a coyote.

 

 _Fuck,_ Matt thinks. Out of all the people who could find him it just had to be the Rogue.


	9. An Honest Backstabber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things don't add up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on my Easter break tomorrow so I'm posting this chapter today. I don't know just how much writing I'll manage to get done over the holidays, but I'll try to get something down during my stay at my families house. The next chapter is pretty roughly outlined, but I know exactly where it's going. Hopefully it'll not grow into a monster like some of the previous chapters.
> 
> As usual a big thanks to TehanueFromEarthSea

She’s initiated into the Knights around a year after he is. Supreme Leader Snoke grants her the name Aunelia Ren. It means spearhead. She never lives up to its grace or its meaning, neither in battle or outside, and the Maker knows if she ever means to. For a Force user she’s perfectly ordinary, maybe a little weaker than most. The Supreme Leader is wise and Kylo Ren is not one to question his Master’s choices, but someone has got to be at the bottom of the pecking order.

 

The only time Kylo sees her big-eyed, russet brown appearance before it disappears under the mask for good is at her initiation ceremony. A Knight of Ren rarely reveals their face, but once she’s put her mask on she never takes it off in front of anyone. The masks make them a unit. Faces makes for individuals. She takes her place next to him, and the Knights of Ren listen to the Supreme Leader’s speech of fidelity to the darkness and obedience to the cause.

 

When the ceremony is over, he opens his mouth to offer, not his congratulations, but his acknowledgement of her now being a part of the Knights, as is the custom. When he turns to her however she’s gone. He gets a glimpse of the tail end of her ceremonial cape as she disappears from the hall.

 

Impotent irritation flares at this novice’s blatant disregard of someone in his position. This is not proper conduct. Kylo Ren isn’t pointing any fingers or naming any names, but someone very fresh in the game is clearly an insufferable brat.

 

Looking back, it’s no wonder she earned the nickname the Rogue.

 

* * *

 

 

If a person’s signature could talk, Nine’s would be saying _kark me kark me kark me_ on a loop. The terror he gives off would have made the hairs on Matt’s body stand up, if the presence of the Rogue wasn’t doing it already.

 

No one else enters the alley after her, which doesn’t seem right. He might be a bit occupied with the fact that he’s been caught on the run, but he still has a half a thought to spare for the unusualness of a Knight showing up alone. They’re suppose to be a group. Not that he is in a position to throw rocks. It was a rule he never followed anyway.

 

There’s no preventing it when her hand comes up to his head. Whatever roadblocks he puts up as she makes her way into his mind, she only steps over as if they’re mere pebbles. He can fight her all he wants, but without the Force he’s useless. The Rogue’s fingers form a claw as she digs in.

 

_Kylo Ren is upon her again when Rey pulls herself onto solid ground. With his lightsaber lifted and with a cry of rage that rattles through his mask, he comes at her in full force. She dodges the first swing with a roll, but the next burns a line across her hip. Rey cries out and stumbles to one knee._

 

_She lashes out through the Force on instinct. It’s a rolling mass of energy she has as good as no control over. Ren forms a shield against the blast, his free hand outstretched and his heels dig tracks into the wet earth as he’s pushed backwards._

 

_In what few seconds she has gained, Rey scours the ground for a weapon. Not her lightsaber -- Luke had taken that back -- while Ren had cleaved her staff in two. Her most trusted tool of protection had suddenly felt like a stranger's property as its weight split between her hands. She had no time to mourn its passing._

 

_Ren comes to a halt. The mask fixes on her, the silver in it gleaming in what morning light there is, and with a swing of his arm he unleashes a bolt of energy that knocks Rey off her feet._

 

_She lands on her back, the air in her lungs going out with the impact. A dark rim forms around her vision as she coughs for air. Just above her head the ground gives way to the open air and water crashing to the rocks below them._

 

_Gasping and coughing she raises herself up on her elbow to see Ren twirl his sabre as he marches towards her._

 

_There’ll be no mercy this time around will there?_

 

_Heaving for every painful breath Rey scurries onto her hands and knees. Fine. She can play a dirty game too. Reaching out with a shaking hand she closes her fingers around the closest rock._

 

_Ren stops his advance. Warmth lands on Rey’s back, penetrating her rain-soaked clothes. The sun is rising. Just a few paces away, he recoils and lifts his hand to shield himself from it. Then he’s staggering backwards, his burning blade half raised, his mask fixed on something behind her._

 

**_On your feet girl._ **

 

_A presence from beyond a veil. A fold in time and space. If Rey turns around she’ll see more than just the sunrise._

 

**_Close your eyes. Feel the Force._ **

 

_She raises her hand and calls._

 

The Rogue pulls back. With her fingers still trained at Matt’s face she shakes her head as if confused. The images coming from Rey’s end of the bond were obviously not what she’d expected.

 

Who’s the fucker wearing his mask? By the grace of the Maker, let Rey plunge the impostor into the ocean. Talk about getting there in the nick of time, Anakin!

 

Matt gasps for air like he’s been holding his breath. Mind probes really kriffing hurts. There’s no time to gain his bearings before the Rogue regains her own. Her hand shoots forward again, and she sinks her claws into his mind for a second time.

 

_Here we have Kylo Ren sitting in a repair shop tinkering with the wheels of a A1M1 unit. He calls himself Matt. And here he is again, sitting on the edge of his bed, contemplating an arm that won’t move and the Force that will no longer come to him. Kylo Ren riffling through a familiar notebook he has no business riffling through. Here’s Kylo Ren in a hangar. Kylo Ren in a mess hall, surrounded by people who treat him as one of their own. Kylo Ren walking down a corridor as he quietly argues with a ghost about sabotage and treason. Kylo Ren crying. Kylo Ren aiming a blaster. Kylo Ren waking up in a stranger’s clinic. He stumbles to his feet, making for the exit._

 

None of this is important. She digs deeper still.

 

_A wounded Kylo Ren enters a crashed shuttle on Starkiller. It contains two stormtroopers, both dead. The one at the helm of the aircraft hangs out of his seat, blaster still stuck to his gloved hand. His frame is too big for the armour he has found. The helmet hasn’t been fastened properly. A tuft of straggly yellow hair has come free at his neck, and an inch of his bright orange tool vest sticks out from under the armour._

 

The Rogue’s hand falls. Matt lets out a strained sound as she releases him. The sight of the dead trooper lingers as a foggy afterimage on his retina. Her mask might not show where she’s looking or what she’s seeing, but her stare might as well be burning a hole through Matt’s skull. She stares for so long that he manages to work himself into an even more nervous, breathless state.

 

Behind him Nine makes a muffled sound. The Rogue’s head snaps in his direction then right back to Matt. Sweat trickles down between his shoulderblades, and his breaths come unevenly. He meets her faceless gaze, and tries not so swallow.

 

The cogs in her head are working. He might not be privy her thoughts but her mannerism is one he knows well. How else would anyone survive the Knights of Ren if they didn’t learn their tells quickly? He is not ready for it, however, when she finally talks.

 

“I apologize,” she says. “ _Matt._ ” Her voice comes out perfectly calm, but the emphasis she puts on the name suggests a different emotion altogether, as if she’s angry about his use of it.

 

“Our ranks have been rife with impostors ever since your disappearance. I had to make sure it was really you. _Matt._ ”

 

His mind spins a mile an hour. Thoughts of how to get  the hell out of this mess and wild ideas of what the fuck she’s going on about are mixed up like a particularly nasty word salad inside his skull. For all her intents and purposes she’s lost him.

 

With the snap of her fingers Matt sags as if freed from invisible ropes. His feet, on the other hand, stay glued to the ground. She pulls back her coat, rests her hand on the lightsaber strapped to her belt, and steps closer. Matt eyes the weapon, inching away from her as far as his position will let him. No Knight of Ren has ever been this close to him before unless they’ve been locked together in a sparring session.

 

“ _Listen._ ” Can a voice be threatening and imploring at the same time? “The higher ups know about the _information_ you were looking for. If they _find_ you, they’ll execute you for _treason_.”

 

Every word she emphasises has him flinching. He not exactly the image of the unmovable force he’s been training to become right now. Even as he meets her gaze levelly, his heart is beating in his chest, attempting to knock its way out of there. The Rogue makes no move to attack.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tells her, his voice far away and uneven.

 

“That’s right, _radar technician_.” Is that an approving nod? “You don’t know a thing.”

 

She gives the neck of her coat a tug as she steps back, her checkered mask still trained on Matt. “Do you understand?”

 

No, he doesn’t. Nothing she’s said or done makes any sense at all. The question is, would she see through him if he said yes?

 

She huffs as if she already has. “You will.”

 

Looking up and down the alley, the Rogue folds her coat back over her saber hiding it from view, then turns her attention to Nine.

 

“I’m sorry for the distress I have caused,” she tells him, perfectly sincere. “Rest assured you’ll walk out of here alive and unharmed. I know I’m a loathsome creature, but we all have to make do with with what we got. Please accept my apology.”

 

Nine’s reply is to look as if he’s about to shit a brick. Or maybe faint. Probably both. That frantic jerk to his head might be a nod, but Matt’s guess is as good as any.

 

As if this is a perfectly acceptable answer one would give a Knight of Ren the Rogue turns back to Matt. “I never thought the real you would be this strange.”

 

The first emotion that isn’t flat-out fear makes its entrance. Usually his irritated scowl would have been shielded by his mask, but now he has no such thing to hide behind. This appears to amuse her.

 

“Oh bugger,” the Rogue says. “Another dead end, this alley. What a shame.”

 

Then she turns and walks away.

 

* * *

 

“She let us go,” Nine says dazedly.  “A Knight of Ren.”

They’re on their way back to the Lugga. Or that is _Matt_ is hurrying back to the Lugga, Nine just sort of lumbers along behind him. The Rogue’s signature had faded completely as soon as she’d disappeared from view. About the same time they both regained the free use of all their limbs.

 

She found him. How? He got rid of his tracker before he got off Starkiller Base. As far as anyone in the First Order knows, Kylo Ren died when the planet did. Or at least that’s what they should believe.

 

Except Kylo Ren is still walking around. Or someone pretending to be him is anyhow. She’d mentioned something about impostors. Who was the Knight fighting Rey? Knowing that Anakin had finally reached her, Matt had let himself pay more attention to his own situation. Now he tests the bond again, and finds it barred once more. He takes it as a good sign that she can spare the mental capacity to keep him out.

 

The memory of the Rogue in what seems like an almost desperate search plays over and over in his mind. She’d tossed everything she’d found aside -- _none of this is important --_ until she’d gotten to that one memory of him entering the crashed shuttle. The incident apparently significant to them both but for different reasons. The Rogue had not been looking for Kylo Ren. She’d been looking for Matt the radar technician and found him instead.

 

“A Knight of Ren let us go,” Nine blabbers on. “A mole in the First Order, and she… she... and _you. You!”_ He points at Matt. “You were a mole too? You two were in cahoots or something?”

 

“Keep your voice down,” Matt snaps, even though there’s barely anyone close enough to hear. The same twi’lek he bumped into earlier has parked their speeder just across the street.

 

“She said you’d been digging up information,” Nine keeps on, his voice now lowered.

 

“Stop talking!”

 

“If you have important info to deliver somewhere, why are you even on the Halcyon? I knew there was something strange ab --”

 

Matt turns on him, grabbing Nine by the front of his jacket with both hands. “I said stop talking!”

 

“Hey man, I’m on your side here,” Nine tells him, his palms raised, but he doesn’t look pleased to be confronted in such a way. Matt grips Nine so hard the man has to stand on the balls of his feet. Matt’s shoulder protests; it has not been tested this way since being injured. Pressure builds in his temple.

 

“You will not tell anybody about this.”

 

If only he could _compel_ Nine to keep quiet. In the back of Matt’s mind a voice suggests he can still make Nine shut up for good. If he’d only take the opportunity, he’d be safe from the mann’s blabbering mouth. Even if Nine carries a blaster and he doesn’t, Matt could still take him down now that he has the prosthetic. He may not be able to wield the Force, but he does have his physical strength back. He could do it.

 

Could he?

 

“Of course not!” Nine says, not batting an eye. “No, I understand. They can’t know. For their own safety's sake.”

 

A beat passes. Matt blinks. Nine looks as earnest as a newborn baby, and damn if he doesn’t sound like one also. He lets go of him, releasing his grip as if burned.

 

“Hey pal I know we didn’t start off on the best of terms…” Nine starts, but trails off. Matt has turned his back on him.

 

They spend the trip back to the Halcyon in silence, Nine stealing confused looks at Matt all the way there. Matt keeps his eyes on the scenery as it goes by. True to his word Nine doesn’t say a thing to their crew mates, but his dinner probably gets cold on his plate during mealtime, because he hardly eats anything.

 

Evening can’t come fast enough, but no one questions it when Matt retires early. Back in his cabin he pulls a bag from a storage unit under his bunk. He fills it with what few changes of the clothes he now owns, some toiletries, and a handful of the painkillers Maer keeps for him. The drugs he’d taken from the supply he himself bought that day. It’s not like there’s anyone here who’ll use it once he’s gone. Someone’s got to take it off their hands.

 

He knows what Anakin would say if he was here, so he might as well do this while he’s not around.

 

In the midst of packing his eyes falls on the radar technician’s orange tool vest, the notebook and the pair of lensless glasses tossed on top of it, all lying in a heap in the corner of his cabin. Matt picks up the book and riffles through it, not knowing what he’s looking for. The possibility of finding the key that would unlock an enigma perhaps. He could go through the book with a fine-tooth comb, but no matter how he looks at the real Matt’s accounts of his everyday life it still just reads like kriffing drivel.

 

The Rogue had said he’d understand, but understand what? No matter how much he replays the scene in the alley there’s nothing about it that makes any kind of sense. The Rogue had always been a loose cannon, that was no secret. No one ever knew what she was up to until she was karking doing it. Nine might talk about moles within the First Order, but Matt’s not making any assumptions until he has more information.

 

He packs the notebook along with the rest of his things, and even throws the glasses in  as an afterthought. It seems wrong somehow to leave the radar technician’s possessions behind. This person whose identity he’s taken, who probably only the Rogue and he will remember.

 

What has she been doing colluding with a radar technician? Has she been steering him around like some kind of puppet for her own purposes? Maintenance crew tend to go unnoticed, so it wouldn’t be farfetched, but there’s something not right about the theory. The way she’d reacted to the revelation of the technician’s death, her anger at Matt having taken his name, tell a different story. Then there’s the insinuation behind everything she’d said in the alley, as if he’s meant to figure out a riddle. For some odd reason Matt gets the feeling she’s handed him some sort of mantle, and he doesn’t even know what it is.

 

Zipping the bag closed Matt takes a look around the small cabin that has been his for the past weeks. Months actually, it’s been months, albeit not more than two. The walls remain as empty as they were when he’d joined the Halcyon. He never did make an effort to make it his own. It’s better this way. He never intended to stay, after all.

 

There’s a faint sensation like a burn across his forearm, and he hisses. The phantom sting of antiseptics turns his attention to Rey. Her wounds have not gone unnoticed from his end, quietly throbbing as though they are ghosts of his own ever since she got them. Not speaking to him, she keeps him at bay as much as her tired mind will allow her as she nurses her wounds. It’s with a hollow pang Matt realizes that she’s even more guarded than she was before.

 

She believes it was him. With the bond between them it doesn’t seem possible, but it is. Despite all it’s worth, despite the fact that she might as well have been dead if it wasn’t for him waking her up in time, she doesn’t realize.

 

The sudden urge to drive his fist through the wall rises in his chest. It’s not fair. She must really think he’s depraved to believe he would come at her while she’s unguarded and sleeping. Why wouldn’t she though, a part of him argues. After what she saw him do to his own father why wouldn’t she?

 

The anger succumbs to a numb weariness as he sinks down onto the bunk. Placing his elbows on his knees, he puts his head in his hands.

 

Here’s the conundrum; this could easily be solved. He could tell her. If he could just make her listen for just a second he could tell her everything. About getting out of the First Order, of what he’s been doing, what he’s been planning. She knows as well as he that lying isn’t possible between the two of them.

 

What good it would do him is anyone’s guess. How is he supposed to make anything right again? The thought that they could at least come to some sort of understanding on the other hand? Maybe even reach an equilibrium between them within the bond... Kriff. It would be one load off his back.

 

But Rey is with the Resistance and where would that leave him? Could he risk having her tell Luke? Or his mother? Even that FN trooper. Besides, what’s the point? What Rey wants is to be rid of him. Why should he be getting his hopes up about gaining her trust when the only thing he ever did for her was give her trouble? Whatever little he has to gain it can’t possibly be worth it. It’s better this way. _She’s_ better off this way. It wouldn’t be good for her training for him to ask her to keep secrets.

 

The chrono throws its light on him in the otherwise dim room, showing that barely an hour has passed since he left Nine and the rest of the crew in the mess. Most of them will still be awake. Zapf’s the only one besides Matt with the habit of keeping to himself during evenings. The gnarly old bloke will be happy to discover he has his repair shop to himself again tomorrow morning. He certainly seemed eager to get Matt off his back today.

 

His mind set on what he has to do, Matt pulls on his jacket and waits for night.

 

* * *

 

He would have left right away if it hadn’t meant risking the possibility of someone demanding a goodbye. Matt suspects that at least Maer might not let him go without some sort of repetition of what happened the last time he tried to leave. A clean break is better. He doesn’t know these people, hasn’t tried to, and they don’t know him.

 

When he gets into the cargo hall it becomes clear that won’t happen. The boarding ramp is down and the night lights of Riche shine through the opening. Captain Adilet sits on a crate, leaning against the side of the hangar door, studying her datapad. Her hair moves softly in the cool air from outside. She raises her head when he approaches. Marking her spot in whatever she’s been reading, she shuts down the pad and stands up.

 

Making no signs of getting in his way she stays to the side of the door that’s big enough to let two truck hoverers through side by side. The memory of what she told him about not keeping unwilling passengers aboard the Halcyon comes back to him, and a pang of something like guilt for just leaving while no one’s looking goes through him. He owes this woman and her crew his life. Anakin will probably have his hide.

 

“You’re leaving,” Adilet says. It’s not a command or a question. Just simple fact.

 

Matt bites the inside of his lip, glancing past her and out to the buildings lining the horizon. Then he unwillingly meets her eyes. “Yes.”

 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

 

Matt blinks and looks down. The prosthetic sleeve sticks out under his jacket. It’s become such an intrinsic part of him so fast he’s forgotten it was never really his.

 

Adilet makes a indifferent sound. “If Doc finds out you left that behind she’ll hunt you down and staple it to your shoulder. Best keep it for your own safety.”

 

She picks up a pouch bag from the crate she’s been sitting on and hands it to him. “This is yours.”

 

Matt eyes it warily, but Adilet just looks at him with the air of someone who expected his reaction.

 

“What is it?” he asks.

 

“Provisions for the road, and the salary you were about to walk out on.”

 

Taking the pouch, the weight of it pulls at his hand. There must be weeks’ worth of portions in there as well as something else. It’s hard against his palm as he runs it over the fabric; the distinct shape of a blaster. He looks up, shamefaced.

 

“How did you know?”

 

“I told you Matt, you’re a runner. It’s in your eyes.” Adilet crosses her arms in front and turns her face to the city lights.

 

“Will you humour a lady and stay for just a moment?”

 

He hesitates, but now that there’s no longer any chance of getting off the ship without being discovered, what does it matter? He adds the pouch to his bag and stands with the captain on the edge of the boarding ramp.

 

Adilet looks up towards the stars. “I suppose you won’t tell me what happened out there today,” she says. Matt glances sideways, and she meets his eyes.

 

“You and Nine are very different creatures,” she explains, “despite all your similarities. Nine’s an open book. I suppose he always needed a helmet covering his face to keep his state of mind hidden. I’ve never saw that man as agitated as he was when you two came back. Not even when I told him he had to make the cargo hall hospitable to a live mogos herd. But you Matt,” she fixes him with a knowing look, “you hide.”

 

He shuffles his feet. The city lights form a halo of gold against the night sky, casting light on the ramp where they stand. “What makes you say that?”

 

“I’m certain you’ve never lied to us,” Adilet says. “Your face is as calm as a summerbreeze when there’s something you’re not saying, but I’m certain that if I looked closely I’d find your calm is really the eye of a storm.”

 

 _You remind me of my mother,_ he thinks. The thought springs into life unbidden, but it’s the truth; Leia always did see right through him. It never mattered how well he lied, she always just knew. He supposes that’s why he stopped lying, and started omitting the truth instead. He wonders though, was even that enough?

 

“I believe you’re a good man,” Adilet says, “if you just choose to be.” The city lights reflect bluish on her skin as she gazes out. The words are directed at him, but Matt has the feeling she’s partially saying it for someone else.

 

What does Adilet see when she looks at Nine? Hell, what does she see when she looks at Matt? She’d told him she lost a child to the trooper program, and her husband died trying to get him back, but she never said anything beyond that. She never asked him about the First Order or its inner workings. Maybe she got all her answers from Nine.

 

“I hope this isn’t about protecting us,” she says.

 

“With all due respect,” Matt tells her, “but you know what you would be up against.”

 

She makes a pained face, conflicted. What happened to her family, it must be enough of a warning to wish him off her ship. There’s a new family in her life after all. Matt pays enough attention to know that she speaks to her wife and son every day. The way she talks about them, he sometimes wonders why she chose a job that keeps her away from home. Why would any parent?

 

Adilet exhales heavily, straightens and faces him. “You know how to contact us.”

 

He nods.

 

Kriff. Is she going to cry? She looks as if she’s about to cry. He really hopes she won’t, even if that would make them even in some ways. It would only be fair, and it would be over as soon as he’s gone.

 

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Adilet says.

 

The image of Hux’s head on a pike comes to mind, and while it’s a delightful one it’s quickly pushed aside. A feeling of rest has slowly been seeping through Rey’s end of the bond. After a tumultuous day she’s finally calm again, sleeping peacefully. Matt can sense her exhaustion as if it were his own. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to go back to his own bed and sleep for a week.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Adilet nods in acknowledgement. “Matt.”

 

“Captain.”

 

He walks out of the Halcyon and doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are sad we're leaving the Halcyon crew behind, I hope you can rest easy knowing this isn't the last we've seen of them just yet. ;)


	10. Son of a Scoundrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there’s thievery and sabotage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're finally at the part I always hoped I'd be able to get to. It took a while longer than what I originally planned, but it is what it is. I can't believe I've managed to write more than 45k! Are you still with me? I'm thinking I'm going to start cutting my chapters into shorter ones. That way I'll hopefully get to update this story more often.
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
>  **High Tide Rising by Fox**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> there's a big storm comin'  
> and i don't care  
> there's a big storm comin'  
> and i don't care  
> so ooh, baby  
> just gimme my ticket to hell
> 
> there's a high tide rising  
> and i don't mind  
> there's a high tide rising, yeah  
> and i don't mind  
> so ooh, baby  
> just gimme my ticket to hell  
> so ooh, baby  
> just gimme my ticket to hell

 

"There. See that panel right there? That’s what you’re looking for.”

 

If Anakin had a physical form he’d be hunched over, hands on knees, while delivering his instructions. On his back, with his head inside the stuffy compartment underneath the ship’s controllers, Matt turns his head and lays eyes on the panel in question.

 

“You know, I could really use a hand here.” Matt adjusts his pneumatic wrench to the bolts lining the corners of the panel and puts it to the wall.

 

“Hilarious,” Anakin says in a flat voice. “One day I’ll be gone and then you’ll regret you ever disrespected your elders.”

 

Matt huffs a short laugh as the first bolt comes loose. “Damn Anakin. It’s not like you can get any deader.”

 

“I remember the days when you used to revere everything I said.”

 

“Yeah, well. Family tend to disappoint like that.”

 

Anakin’s signature carries a hint of irritated resignation. In Matt’s mind he’d be rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “One of us need to keep an eye on that door.”

 

The last bolt comes loose and Matt yanks the panel out, revealing a dark space filled with wires. He grabs his flashlight. “I already got that covered.”

 

“I’m sure,” Anakin says. “How’s the headache?”

 

Suppressing a wince as he turns on the flashlight, Matt makes a noncommittal grunt. His shoulder complains as he reaches through the hole he just opened.

 

“You didn’t take your meds again did you?”

 

“Didn’t need ‘em.”

 

“For kriff’s sake.” Anakin sounds more apathetic than angry, which is a nice change for once.

 

Matt emerges from the compartment under the controllers with a pair of CT couplings in hand. They’re exactly the right size. Look new even. He holds them up to appease Anakin. _See?_

 

“Relax. We’re doing fine. Isn’t that right RQ?”

 

The stormtrooper standing in the middle of the open ramp, docilely holding her blaster, turns her white mask to the inside of the carrier. “Sir?”

 

“How are we doing out there? Any hostiles?”

 

“Nothing to report, sir.”

 

“That’s a little vague,” Anakin grumbles. Of course he does. He’s been beyond annoying lately.

 

“For the hundredth time I’m fine. Can you please stop acting as if every little thing is going to  kill me?”

 

“I’m merely questioning the specifics of the order you gave that trooper.”

 

“I told her to keep watch. How much more specific than that can you get?”

 

“Keep watch for whom?”

 

Matt has a retort ready, but at that very moment, as if the universe has decided to prove Anakin’s point for him, another stormtrooper walks right past RQ and into the carrier. His blaster barrel comes up, pointing directly at Matt where he sits on the floor beneath the controllers. “Hey! You there!”

 

_Fuck._

 

Stuffing the couplings into his backpack, Matt pulls his goggles over his eyes and stands up. “There’s nothing to see here,” he says with as much authority as he can. The trooper stops, its mask trained on him. Matt puts all his willpower along with the Force into his voice as he raises his hand to compel the newcomer. “I’m just a technician doing his job.”

 

The trooper’s head tilts as if in consideration. For a moment it seems the compulsion is working, but then he points his weapon with new resolve. Before Matt can reach for the blaster strapped to his hip, however, the trooper promptly collapses.

 

“I had him on the ropes,” Matt says.

 

“Just making sure,” says Anakin. “You are welcome by the way.”

 

Grumbling to himself, Matt closes his backpack so nothing will fall out. Then he secures his scarf over his mouth and nose to protect against the dusty planet outside, before he straightens his goggles. He steps over the snoring stormtrooper, and out on the ramp where RQ, the useless bucket, still stands guard. On a whim he stops.

 

“Ever thought of changing profession?” he asks RQ. When she shows no signs of answering he clarifies. “Would you leave the First Order?”

 

The trooper turns her head a fraction towards him. If he would have guessed he’d think she was trying not to show any reaction.

 

“Do you mean like FN-2187 did, sir?”

Like FN-2187 did? Whatever propaganda this trooper has been fed, it has some serious lack of the usual brain numbing vitamins. The incident with FN shouldn’t be common knowledge at all unless General Hux has suddenly decided to stage an uproar against himself.

 

“Yes,” is all Matt says.

 

“Any signs of malfunction is treated with reprogramming, sir.”

 

It’s not exactly an answer that matches his question. That’s interesting. RQ directs her visored stare forward again.

 

“I’m going to need you to give General Hux a message for me,” Matt tells her.

 

“What message should I convey, sir?”  


“Thanks for the engine parts, Armitage.”

 

“Understood, sir.”  


“You never saw me.”

 

He walks out of the Atmospheric Assault Lander and down onto the ancient cobblestone outside. There’s a short spike in the Force behind him, but he doesn’t turn to see what it is. Anakin has taken it upon himself to reinforce everything Matt does. He grits his teeth, but decides against mentioning it.

 

The pressure at his temple tells him he’s going to pay for today’s exertion later on. It might be another sleepless night, so the usual deal it is. But just because he’s unable to do more than lift pebbles, doesn’t mean he’s not going to use his newly returned power for all that it’s worth. As it turns out stormtroopers are easily compelled. They always seem to walk around half dazed, even in battle. Robotic almost.

 

He’d had to get past a few trooper to get onto this makeshift landing site in what looks like the middle of what had once been a beautiful plaza, but is now a former warzone. Three other carriers like the one he just walked out of, used to ferry troopers to the battlefield, line the place. They’re empty except for the few guards standing in front of them, all of which have been told never to speak of the goggled stranger who robbed them of a few engine parts.

 

The city of Lud has been under First Order control for months, and the rest of the Ludian planet has slowly been following ever since. It was one of the first to do so after the Hosnian System went. The battle that lead to the change of power ended almost as soon as it had started. The troopers who march the streets now are meant to keep order, and weed out any rebellious activity they might find.

 

It was never Matt’s intention to end up in this hellhole, but the captain of the freighter he caught a ride on didn’t seem to care much for his aptitude to keep a distance between himself and other people. Apparently it made him ‘untrustworthy.’ Matt had answered by telling him in front of his crew just how much of their income the captain was keeping to himself and out of their paychecks. This, of course, had not gone down as well has he’d thought. Let’s just say, there are days he thinks more about his cabin back in the Halcyon, than others.

 

Moving from planet to planet, in the hopes that no one will follow him, and keeping his ears to the ground for any news of the First Order’s progress at the same time, is a tiresome job.

 

“Heads up,” Anakin says. Matt picks up his speed and darts the few paces left into the nearest alley, just as a pair of stormtroopers enters the plaza from the main street. He presses himself up against the wall, out of sight from their beetle black visors, a hand resting on the blaster at his hip. From his hiding place, he watches as the two reach the carrier closest to him and speak to the trooper standing guard there.

 

Matt should get his ass out of this place before they find the sleeping buckethead Anakin knocked out only a couple of minutes ago and the hole Matt has torn under the console of one of their ships, but just as he turns away a series of loud cracks cuts through the air.

 

In the plaza all the troopers come to life, raising their blasters and shouting between them as all four Assault Landers spew black smoke from their open ramps. A couple carriers even sag pathetically, the integrity of their hulls compromised.

 

The whole drama is over in a few seconds. There’s no deaths, and no extravagant explosions. All that is left are engines too damaged to fly and half a dozen confused troopers chasing their tails.

 

The hairs on Matt’s neck rise. He was just in there. “Did you do that?” he asks Anakin.

 

“No.” The ghost sounds just as bemused as he is.

 

Matt can’t sense anyone around, not anyone with this kind of mischief in their hearts besides himself at least. But _he_ is not in possession of any kind of explosives, or even the knowledge of how to use them.

 

Anakin’s signature is on alert. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Leaving the shouting stormtroopers and the smoking carriers behind Matt takes off down the alley, making sure his backpack is secured and undamaged as he walks. Whoever the culprits are they’re probably long gone if they’re worth their salt. Where a planet is being occupied by the First Order, there’s bound to be rebels. It seems to be second nature to most sapient lifeforms. Matt takes a right at the end of the alley, and another right, ending up smack in the middle of a crowded market street. Despite its recent history of war, Lud is still bustling with business. Good. He can disappear into the masses here.

 

Matt winds his way through the various lifeforms, making sure to give any hints of white armours carrying blasters a wide berth. Chances are low anyone will recognize him, especially with his face covered in the dusty wind, but best not take any chances.

 

Anakin had, surprisingly enough, agreed with Matt’s decision to leave the Halcyon, but that doesn’t mean he’d been pleased with how he’d done it. Finding him wandering the streets on Riche in the middle of the night probably wasn’t what Anakin had expected after leaving him safe and warm in his own cabin that very same morning. Matt had gotten an earful of it. If only he could stay out of trouble for just two seconds! He’d done his very best to explain to Anakin that trouble seemed to be following him and not the other way around. No stories about the Rogue living up to her nickname could appease Anakin’s frustration with Matt just taking off without a second thought to where he would go or what he would do.

 

On the other hand Anakin hadn’t been able to give Matt much on who the impostor in Kylo Ren’s mask had been. The mind of the new Knight had been a stone wall to him, much like Matt’s had been before everything had gone to hell on Starkiller. “You do realize,” Anakin when asked how this was possible, “the reason I was able to get through to you that day was because you were finally willing to let me in. You’re the one who lifted whatever barrier was between us, not I.”

 

Matt remembers. Lying in the snow, pathetically broken, the biggest mistake in his life fresh behind him, and only a blip on Rey’s radar as she rapidly left him far behind. He’d been ready to let himself get caught in the planet’s inevitable demise. The idea of facing his death alone though…. Well. He wasn’t about to tell Anakin that.

 

So someone with his mask is prancing around the galaxy and Rey believes it’s him. Which means Luke probably does too, and possibly Leia Organa as well. When Matt mentioned this, Anakin had hummed and hawed for a bit, then noted that the bond between him and Rey seems to be growing strangely asymmetrical.

 

Yeah well, no shit. If Matt can see what’s going on with Rey through her own eyes, and she’s not even able to detect that the buffoon in a mask standing in front of her isn’t the real Kylo Ren, she must truly be desperate to break their bond to push him so far out of her mind. Well, boo fucking hoo. For all her intentions the joke’s still on her.

 

He guesses.

 

The bond has grown taut, in lack of a better word. Where there’d used to emotions, wonder, anger, and frustration, there’s now a wire pulled tight between them. A few days after he’d left the Halcyon, Matt had bolted awake in the night, sure that Rey would be standing over him. She’d been there alright, if not in person. If it hadn’t been for the complete darkness around him, she’d surely would have realized something wasn’t right on his end. The simple but flowery decoration of the small room he’d rented for the night would have been the first indication.

 

Whatever it was she did or did not see, the next moment she was still gone. Ever since the bond has slowly, not faded exactly, but grown silent. The only thing about it that’s exactly as before is the inexplicable pull.

 

He supposes it’s something to be alone in his own head again.

 

“There’s darkness in her,” Anakin had said as he recalled her battle with Fake Kylo Ren.

 

Big fucking whoop, he could have knocked Matt over with a feather. Of course she had the darkness, as well as the light. He’d felt it when she’d carved her way out of his hold on her during the interrogation. It was like the Force in its entirety had taken root in that one girl. It hadn’t stopped her from practically putting his arm in a meat grinder and slashing his face open for offering to teach her. That was how set she was on not going down that path. That girl was determined.

 

A glimpse of two white figures ahead prompts a quick turn into a side street. Matt pulls up the collar of his jacket as he looks over his shoulder. The bucketheads are everywhere, and his headache has started to really make its presence known. His goggles protect his eyes from the bright light of the star this planet orbits, but even so, retiring to a cool dark space of his own where he can put his head down, is likely the only remedy.

 

Hard work and long days no longer give him much trouble. As far as that’s concerned his concussion appears to be fully healed. While that’s all fine and dandy, it would have been really kriffing swell if his Force powers had returned in full also. Instead, what Matt has to work with is a reach that ebbs and flows, and sometimes even shuts down entirely again depending on how hard he pushes himself. The amount of Force he’s able to channel these days is a trickle in comparison to what he could do before. Even Anakin doesn’t understand why his powers keep acting this way, but at the same time he doesn’t seem surprised. For as long as it lasts, Matt will just have to work with what he’s got.

 

In the meantime, he has the blaster Adilet gave him.

 

In the meantime, he has what Han Solo taught him as a kid.

 

A Force ghost that would carry his share of their haul would have been helpful too though.

 

He pulls at the right strap of his backpack, alleviating the strain of the weight on his damaged shoulder. The street has long since turned into an industrial area. He walks around a truck hoverer, and takes a left into a shipyard, and there it is; the reason he went into First Order territory in the first place. The Marauder class VCX-100 Light Freighter stands quietly between two biggers ships. A product of Corellian engineering, its gray painted squarish disc of a body makes it stand out between all the other machines.

 

It’s _his._

 

Another perk of at least partially regaining his Force powers; it’s an excellent way to get the upper hand in a game of sabacc. He couldn’t live on what he’d earned on the Halcyon forever, and while working on cargo ships for credits, food and the opportunity to travel to new worlds, gambling for a living also has its perks. Especially if one can read other people’s minds.

 

What was he supposed to do? It wasn’t like Anakin would help him out. The ghost had simmered for a good while the first time Matt had tried his abilities at the game, doing a lot of grumbling about keeping him on a clean path. The look on the face of the old Togruta Matt had beaten had been priceless, especially since he knew for a fact that the gnarly alien had rigged the suspension field to his own advantage. Hell, most of the time Matt didn’t really need to intervene with the Force. Once he’d had picked up the cards for the first time since he’d been a teenager, it had all come back to him. Gambling. Another thing his father had taught him.

 

_There’s no good cards in this game, son. There’s only opportunities and knowing when to take them._

 

Anakin’s signature turns funny as the Marauder ship comes into view. There’s a moment where it’s as if he’s about to say something, probably complain some more, but when he speaks he says: “I take it you’ll manage to get yourself the rest of the way there without any incidents?”

 

“You’re leaving?”

 

“I have an afterlife too, if you must know.”

 

“You only mention it about twice a day,” Matt says. “When are you going to tell me about it, by the way?”

 

“We have book clubs, and knit tea cozies,” Anakin replies. “Death’s nothing to get excited about. Best just keep yourself alive for as long as humanly possible.”

 

Matt shakes his head, but lets him go. Anakin’s signature fades into nothing as he approaches the Marauder’s boarding ramp and activates it. Once well inside, he bypasses the entry to the dorsal turret and make a left for the main hall which also serves as a galley. Matt places the backpack on the small round table. It clanks as the parts inside meets the hard surface. He pulls off his jacket and the goggles and throws them on the couch.

 

The galley produces clear, clean tasting water, and Matt swallows down his pain medication with some as he fishes in a cupboard for a nutrition bar he’d stored a case of earlier. He finds it and rips the wrapping off with his teeth as he leans his ass against the table.

 

The ship’s pretty decent. Even Anakin had to admit that much. It’s probably been around since the Empire, but previous owners have taken good care of it as far as Matt can tell. It has some new parts here and there, and there’s some nifty modifications to the power core that are bound to put an edge on the ship’s performance. Matt would have tested it out yesterday, if it hadn’t been for the CT couplings needing to be replaced.

 

An odd feeling comes over him as he studies a square on the opposite bulkhead that’s lighter than the surrounding wall, marking the spot where something must have hung once. Matt puts down the empty wrapper as he tries to place the emotion. It’s not the excitement of having won this prize, the feeling of ownership, or even the rush of knowing that he can practically go wherever the hell he chooses. The sensation sits deep in his chest, and while it doesn’t burn or irritate it doesn’t exactly soothe either.

 

Han had also won the Millennium Falcon in a game of sabacc.

 

Just then his eyes falls on something in the corner, a bundle of sorts that wasn’t there before. Matt furrows his brow and pushes off the table. The bundle turns out to be another backpack, a big one, and heavy too, covered by a rag, and when Matt opens it he finds….

 

_The hell?_

 

The backpack is put back down carefully. Carefully, because an explosion would be extremely unfortunate. Especially after having endured another one of Anakin’s lectures on the merits of not dying. Once the charges are safely on the floor again, Matt unholsters his blaster.

 

It’s a good thing the lights in here can be dimmed, because he’s been squinting for the better part of his trip back to the ship, even with the goggles on. Before he takes a step in any direction Matt reaches out with the Force. If someone is on board he should have detected them upon entering, but the day has been long, and he’s just about stretched his current ability to the breaking point. He’s lucky if the pain meds kick in before the event of a confrontation.

 

There’s not a soul for several hundred meters around, but that’s not of any help if the intruder knows how to cloak their signature. The Marauder, for all intents and purposes, seems empty apart from himself. Matt closes his eyes and slows his breathing.

 

_There._

 

His grip on the blaster loosens somewhat, but he doesn’t holster it again. He should be calling for Anakin right now, but whatever it is he’s detected it’s… not aggressive at the very least. With his heartbeat elevated, he walks out of the main hall and down the corridor, past the sleeping quarters, and into the cockpit.

 

He finds nothing’s been moved. Nothing’s been taken out or altered. Every switch and dial is in the right position, and none of the lights are blinking. Nothing has been left behind in there either. Everything is just as he left it this morning.

 

Except for the Wookiee in the pilot’s chair. That one’s new.


	11. Khoshekh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things get hairy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first line here was inspired by all the comments you guys left on chapter ten.
> 
> As always a big thanks to TehanueFromEarthSea!

 

She’s not Chewbacca.

 

The mountain of steel gray fur reclining in the pilot’s chair might as well have been a ghost. Thanks to a father whose best friend in life was a Wookiee, Matt knows something about Kashyyyk’s history, even if he’s forgotten a lot of the names and details. He may not be an expert, but this Wookiee wears the colors of a clan that was as good as wiped out during the Empire.

 

Three long, thick dreadlocks hang down on either side of her neck, one simple silvery metal band ornamenting the end of one. The ship’s consoles look like playsets with her sitting behind them. Her beady black eyes gleam in the light from the viewport as she tilts her head, looking up at Matt with the air of someone confronting a trespasser. He stares at her. She stares right back.

 

The Wookiee gives the blaster in his hand a fleeting glance. Her own weapon remains securely in its holster at her side. A deep rumble comes from her throat and she speaks. What is he doing on her ship?

 

Matt raises his eyebrows, looking from the control panels back to the Wookiee. “Your ship?” he says. “This is  _ my _ ship.”

 

She makes a curious sound. Is that so? And how did he come by it?

 

“I won it.”

 

From who?

 

“Tavra Seks.”

 

Tavra Seks?

 

Is there an echo in here? “Yes,” Matt tells her. “Tavra Seks.”

 

The Wookiee studies him for a moment, a low sound, like a faint growl comes from her chest. Her eyes swipe from Matt to the interior of the cockpit as she huffs something that might be a wry laugh. When she finds that cheating Togruta she’s going to tie his lekku in a knot he won’t untie any time soon. She too won this ship from that charlatan.

 

Matt opens his mouth to tell her to hell with that, but the words stop on their way out when she rises to her feet. By the kriffing Maker, he knows Wookiees are tall creatures, but bloody hell! The cockpit is barely big enough to contain her. How did she manage to squeeze herself in here in the first place?

 

Matt’s hand tightens instinctively on his blaster. For all her menacing size, the Wookiee seems calm enough, confident even. Irked, same as he, but her signature tells him there’s not an ounce of antagonism in her, which in and of itself is kind of worrisome.

 

Just how did she manage to get past his radar?

 

The Wookiee’s head brushes against the ceiling. She easily dwarfs him like he’s the size of some kid on a playground. For the first time in a long time Matt has to tip his head back just to look her in the eyes. She tilts her own head in her curious way, gazing down at him with an unsettling intensity. A deep, slow, low rumble comes from somewhere around her midriff. It reverberates through the air and into Matt’s chest like the healthy thrum of a well-kept ship’s engine. It settles in his bones like a cat’s purr. He stands there, suddenly transfixed, his blaster held forgotten in his hand and his eyes widening as the Wookiee leans down and  _ sniffs _ him.

 

Whatever she smells, it catches her attention; when she draws back she’s looking at him like he’s some strange new creature she’s never seen before.

 

The Wookiee bleats softly. Her name is Khoshekh. Who is he?

 

Matt shakes himself, blinking, a strange feeling that this isn’t exactly going as he’d expected it would. “I’m… I’m Matt.”

 

As suddenly as her manner had gone from irritated to curious it’s right back to suspicious. The Wookiee narrows her eyes as if she’s detected a lie.

 

A sudden click comes from the other end of the hallway, and then the hydraulic whir of the boarding ramp sounds throughout the ship. The Wookiee lifts her head, just as Matt turns, all discussion of the Marauder’s true ownership momentarily forgotten.

 

The door to the galley stands open, just past the intersection of the ship's two main hallways. As the sound of the ramp quiets down voices make themselves heard from just around the corner; the distinct tone of words spoken through vocoders.

 

Matt looks over his shoulder at the Wookiee. Realization dawns on her hairy face just as the thought enters his mind.

 

There are stormtroopers on his ship.

 

It’s a good thing he hasn’t holstered his blaster, because the next second the first buckethead appears around the corner. Matt shoots from the hip and the trooper goes down, but the victory is short lived. The rest of the intruders are right behind. They mill into the hallway as though the Marauder is just some kriffing hornet’s nest. Matt has no time to think or shield himself. He raises his blaster and aims.

 

Then the strange shit starts happening.

 

The next trooper knocks himself out with the butt of his own blaster. His head bounces back with the force of the impact and he falls like a puppet with its strings cut. The two that come after him collide, their helmets rebounding off each other, and they too collapse to the floor. The fourth trooper does half a backwards somersault, as if he just slipped on a wet spot, and lands in a heap on his back.

 

Matt looks up from his blaster. He already knows stormtroopers are crap at aiming but this seems unnecessarily sloppy.

 

The fifth trooper is the one who gets a shot inn. The bolt disrupts the air around Matt’s ear, and there’s a yelp of pain behind him. The next moment the trooper freezes solid, going as rigid as a statue.

 

A giant paw has appeared just over Matt’s right shoulder. As the last trooper stands there fighting against invisible ropes, Matt turns, following the hairy arm with his eyes, to find that the Wookiee hasn’t drawn her weapon yet. A small patch of blood is forming in the fur at her side. She’s flashing her teeth, and her paw forms a claw as she holds the trooper in an iron grip from twelve paces away. With a swing of her arm the buckethead sails backwards through the galley door and collides with the table just inside.

 

She has the Force.

 

Matt looks from her to the fallen troopers littering the corridor, some of them groaning and stirring weakly where they lie. The Wookiee -- Khoshekh -- lets out a long, pained sound, and puts a paw to her injured side.

 

_ She has the Force. _

 

Matt touches his temple. Sweat coats his fingertips. Is he seeing things? If he had a headache before, this impromptu firefight has turned it into something close to a fully fledged migraine. He squints in the dim light of the cockpit. His vision has started to double and as it blurs the shape of the Wookiee turns into a giant ghost again.

 

He almost doesn’t hear the last sets of boots entering the hall before the troopers are upon them. The Wookiee’s doubled over herself, her focus on her own wound. The white armours appear in Matt’s peripheral vision and he doesn’t think; he lifts his hand and fires.

 

Three shots, and two troopers fall. The one he misses reacts fast, aiming his weapon straight at Matt. His stance is good, and his aim is true, but the weapon clicks.

 

The trooper looks at his malfunctioning blaster, then takes in his fallen brethren littering the hallway as well as Matt and Khoshekh standing together at the end of it. The Wookiee has her paw raised again. She makes a twisting motion and the trooper’s blaster flies out of his hands. Robbed of his weapon, he raises his palms in an act of surrender. As Matt watches, the trooper slowly backs away from them, and disappears the same way he came. They can hear the sound of his armoured boots change as he turns and runs down the ramp and out of the ship.

 

Khoshekh brushes past Matt. She walks nimbly between all the fallen troopers as if the size of her feet is nothing at all, and when she comes to the last one she scoops him up in her arms and throws him over her shoulder. The trooper groans, and flails weakly. She makes a deep cooing sound and he falls quiet.

 

With the trooper secured across her back, Khoshekh lifts her other paw and levitates another one.

 

_ Anakin, you won’t fucking believe this, _ Matt thinks.  _ There’s a mad Wookiee on my ship and she’s Force sensitive.  _ What can he do? He couldn’t crush a fly with the Force right now, even if he wanted to.

 

Khoshekh lifts her head towards him and rumbles. Is he going to stand there all day or is he going to help her?

 

Matt’s moving before he knows it. He lunges over, choosing to haul the trooper draped across the galley table across his back first. Needles of pain shoot through his shoulder as he lifts, but he can’t think of that now. When he carries the trooper into the hall, its helmet knocks against the doorframe.

 

Outside he staggers. Closing his eyes against the harsh sun, Matt drops the trooper onto the ramp before he can lose his balance completely. The body rolls the rest of the way down. He flails out with his hand, covering his eyes with the other, and manages to locate the edge of the Marauder’s door. He pulls himself inside where it’s darker. Sharp lights swim behind his eyelids as that familiar, sick churning in his stomach returns. He was supposed to be rid of that. He was supposed to be getting better. Damn it, where’s his goggles?

 

Soft fur brushes against his face. Matt flinches and lashes out blindly with his fist. Pure muscle memory. But a paw catches his wrist, and holds it in a firm grip. The Wookiee growls.  _ Bad pup.  _ Just like when she’d sniffed him, Matt finds himself rooted to the spot once more. She’s making that deep, engine-like purr again. Covering his entire forehead with her other paw, she goes silent.

 

The iron band that is his migraine breaks. It evaporates, leaving his head feeling as light as a feather. The world comes back into focus, the glare of the light gone, and he’s left blinking up at her. Khoshekh lets go of him, humming in a satisfied way.

 

There. All better now.

 

She leaves Matt gaping like a fish on land by the ramp, and hurries inside to pick up another stormtrooper.

 

Just as she hauls it over her shoulders, they hear it. Khoshekh’s head snaps in his direction just as Matt looks up at the sky. The familiar whine rises over the larm of Lud outside. It’s a mere dot over the city’s horizon, growing bigger by the second; a TIE fighter flanked by two others further off.

 

No way.

 

No fucking way!

 

His luck can’t possibly be this bad.

 

Matt runs back inside, swearing loudly as he goes. “We’ve got kriffing TIE fighters on our tail,” he shouts at the Wookiee.

 

Bleating ruefully, she throws a second trooper over her other shoulder. She didn’t think she’d been followed all the way here.

 

“Followed?” Matt snaps, grabbing two other troopers by the wrists to drag them along the floor towards the exit, not bothering with carrying this time around. He’s got his own body weight on his side. “Why the hell were you being followed?”

 

Well, she kind of blew up a few ships earlier.

 

Matt almost stops what he’s doing, but the approaching TIE’s are getting louder and there’s no time to lose. “Wait. That was you?” The events of the day come together. The smoking carriers and the explosives he found in the galley. “You should have been more carefull!”

 

Khoshekh growls her retort. He’s one to talk. She saw him stealing from the First Order. He’d nearly been caught! 

 

Between the two of them they get the remaining troopers out, either by  dragging,  carrying or levitating. Matt throws a last glance at the sky as he goes back inside. They need to get away from there now. And where is Khoshekh? She was right on his heels.

 

The Wookiee is hunched over one of the troopers, the one she’d thrown into the galley earlier. She has her paw over the crack in the troopers armor, channeling a steady stream of the Force, healing whatever’s damaged underneath.

 

Matt grits his teeth, panting from exertion. Why? Why is she wasting precious time on a trooper? She’s definitely not quite right in the thinking department. He should close the ramp on her and get the hell out of dodge while there’s still time.

 

Up in the sky the TIE’s are getting close to shooting range, gaining ground as they eat up the blue. If it hadn’t been for the Wookiee healing his migraine Matt would probably have been a useless pile on the ground right now, crawling around blindly in the dirt, unable to make out the oncoming threat up above.

 

Matt slaps his palm against the bulkhead. “Hey fuzzball!” Her huge head comes up. “Get in or I’m leaving you behind.”

 

With a baleful whine Khoshekh rises to her feet and makes for the ramp.

 

Good. Matt leaves her to close the exit behind them, and runs down the hallway towards the cockpit. When he attempts to sit down behind the controls, however, a giant paw grabs him by the shoulder, pushing him sideways into the copilot’s seat.

 

“What the kriffing hell is wrong with you?” Matt wipes sweaty strands of his hair out of his eyes, glaring at her.

 

Khoshekh slides into the pilot’s chair with more grace than her size should allow.  _ This _ is  _ her _ spot.

 

Matt’s going to have a bone to pick with her on this particular matter, but for now the shrill cry of oncoming killing machines is enough to make him forget all about it. His fingers fly over the controls, executing the startup sequence. The Marauder comes alive. With a welcoming thrum, its lights flicker on one by one. It’s like the smell of home, and Matt can almost taste the relief of roaming freely among the stars, before he remembers….

 

“The couplings,” he says, a heavy ball of panic forming in his stomach as his mind goes to the backpack all the way back in the galley. His eyes meet the Wookiee’s. “We have to switch the couplings.”

 

Matt bolts out of his chair. He’s halfway through the cockpit’s door when something grabs him by the back of his shirt and drags him back in again.

 

It’s okay. Khoshekh does her Wookiee equivalent of a grin. It looks more than a little menacing. She fixed the couplings only this afternoon. With a flurry of her paw she switches on the Marauder’s shield generator.

 

Oh. Right then.

 

The antenna of one of the ships right in front of them gets shot off. It explodes into a thousand bits as the first TIE swoops overhead. The impacts of laser bolts trace a straight line over the the hull of the Marauder. The kinetic shield holds.

 

“We’re jumping,” Matt says, determined now. Khoshekh vigorously nods her agreement.

 

They lift off the ground just as the next two TIE’s each unleash salvos onto them as well as every other ship parked in their vicinity. The Marauder knock the glass out of the viewport of the ship next to them as they maneuver away from the blasts.

 

“Shit,” Matt says, as he works to correct their position. Khoshekh whines in the general direction of the ship they just damaged: We’re sorry!

 

Matt’s not sorry. Not when all he’s done is trying to stay alive.

 

Up ahead the first TIE swings around in a narrow loop for another attack. Khoshekh leaves the controls to Matt, lifting her paw up to the transparisteel. As Matt urges the Marauder to a latitude they can jump from, he sees the TIE falter from its trajectory. It swings from side to side, flying in a uncoordinated line that disappears under the lower edge of their viewport.

 

The Marauder gains speed, and the flying feeling in Matt stomach spurs him on, pushing the ship to find its limits. It seems to have none. The remaining two TIE’s are left behind in their wake as he steers it upwards, blue sky filling every square inch of the transparisteel. Khoshekh puts her paw on the main hyperdrive control. She pulls it and with a thundering boom they warp out of Lud’s atmosphere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's our mystery Wookiee. I'm sorry to all of you who wanted Chewbacca. I really like the idea of our trash boy traveling the galaxy together with his dad's best friend, but that's not where this story is going. Maybe in another lifetime...
> 
> And for those of you who might be wondering; yes, I named Khoshekh after a [daemon possessed, levitating cat monster.](http://nightvale.wikia.com/wiki/Khoshekh)
> 
> If anyone has some general feedback on how I'm writing Khoshekh's voice, I'd be happy to hear it!


	12. Khoshekh - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there’s caf and a bargain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people has been asking for Rey. She won't be in this chapter, because I need a little more time to establish Khoshekh's place in this story. But we will definitely be seeing our favorite desert warrior princess in the next one. Stay tuned!

 

They’re in hyperspace. The tunnel of light flows like a river outside the transparisteel surrounding the cockpit, saturating everything inside in blue.

 

Matt sags in his seat, letting out a heavy breath. That was too close.

 

Beside him Khoshekh puts a paw to her wound where the blood has painted her gray fur a dark red. Matt sizes her up. She looks from her bloodied paw up at him. They’re back to the two of them, and the issue of the Marauder’s true ownership. Rumbling about finding a bacta patch, she gets up and makes her way down towards the galley.

 

“Having fun there?” Anakin asks.

 

Matt directs his face away from the doorway. “Where the kriff have you been?” he hisses through his teeth.

 

“I didn’t go very far.”

 

Working his jaw, Matt pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you telling me you were here the entire time?”

 

“More or less.”

 

“And you did nothing?”

 

“You’re still alive aren’t you?.”

 

Matt puts his face in his hands and runs them through his sweat-damp hair. “Anakin!”

 

“Calm yourself. She’s very capable. I merely wished to see what she could do. Besides, there’s not much entertainment in the afterlife you know.”

 

“You’re an asshole.”

 

Anakin makes an agreeing sound. “I used to be Darth Vader after all.”

 

Matt groans. His body is coming down from its adrenaline rush, and he’s feeling the aftermath of battle. He’s going to need another nutrition bar. Moving his right arm about, he notes that in addition to a lack of migraine there’s no pain in his shoulder either. When he tests his grasp on the Force, however, it’s still as feeble as it was this morning. Can’t do much with that.

 

“Did you hear what she said about owning the ship?” he asks Anakin.

 

“I did.”

 

“What are we going to do about it?”

 

“We could always use a little help.”

 

Matt scoffs. He doesn’t want help. He wants the only ship that’s ever been his to be _his_ _own_. Looking back through the cockpit’s door, he sees the Wookiee pull something out from a cupboard down in the galley. Funny. He never stored anything in that particular one.

 

“Why don’t you go talk to her?”

 

“This is a standoff, Anakin, not a kriffing play date.”

 

“Stop being so dramatic. I didn’t see her throw you off this ship, and she easily could have.”

 

Matt looks back over his shoulder again. The Wookiee is nowhere to be seen, but he can hear her thumping around all the way from up here. Pushing up from his seat, he makes sure his blaster is secure at his hip. Anakin’s signature is ripe with a silent plea that he won’t do anything rash when he goes back there.

 

Yeah, yeah. He’ll be good. As long as the Wookiee is too.

 

In reality Anakin can take his diplomacy and shove it someplace special, because when Matt’s though the galley door, a giant paw grabs him by the front of his shirt and pushes him into the wall. He reaches for his weapon, but when his hand closes on the holster it’s empty. Khoshekh holds the blaster Adilet gave him up to her face, studying it. She nods — it’s a pretty good blaster — and tosses it onto the couch. It lands on top of Matt’s jacket.

 

Fixing him with a steady glare, Khoshekh rumbles low in her throat. What’s his name?

 

“I told you it’s Matt,” Matt says.

 

She grumbles. No, it’s not.

 

“I’m Matt,” he repeats, grabbing her wrist with his own hand. “Get your paw off me.”

 

Khoshekh lets out a long breath through her nose, eying Matt as if considering what to do with him.

 

“It appears she does not believe you,” Anakin says.

 

What a brilliant observation. Matt makes a move that should have freed him from her hold, but like any other Wookiee, Khoshekh is strong. She’s also had training.

 

“You could always tell her the truth.”

 

And let her know who she’s dealing with? While he’s not all that keen on revealing the name he used to go by, Matt could use some of that good old terror right now. There had, after all, been a time when the mere mention of him had been enough to make people weep. Even if he doesn’t have his powers, his reputation ought to be worth something. What good is his past if he can’t use it for some gain? Fine. He’ll let her have it.

 

Matt draws himself up to his full height, squaring his shoulders. This isn’t like wearing the mask and the cowl, but the Wookie seems capable enough to tell the difference between truth and lie. Lifting his face he looks her straight in the eyes. “You want to know who I am? I’m Kylo Ren.”

 

“Oh boy,” Anakin sighs, a mortified streak in his voice. If he had a corporeal body he might as well have been covering his eyes and shaking his head.

 

The Wookiee on the other hand, frowns. She tilts her head, considering him for a long moment. It’s not the frightful terror Matt had expected, but it’s something. But the moments pass and she shakes her head, grumbling. No, that’s not right either.

 

_A little help here Anakin?_

 

“Think! I know you can solve this.”

 

Matt’s attempt to get another blow in fails. Khoshekh doesn’t even have to avoid his fist, she just calmly wraps his limbs in a Force hold and lets him hang there.

 

“Can’t you just tell her the truth?” Anakin asks him.

 

_Can’t you just knock her out?_

 

Khoshekh flashes her teeth. She as good as hoists him up against the wall by the front of his shirt, her knuckles digging into his ribs. That’s going to leave a bruise.

 

Who is he?

 

_Anakin!_

 

Nothing.

 

“Ben,” Matt grits out. The name rings loud in the little galley. “Kriff! It’s Ben. My name’s Ben. All right?”

 

At once Khoshekh puts him down. She places him back on his feet and flattens the wrinkles she’s made in his shirt, leaving faint smears of half dried blood behind. That wasn’t so bad was it?

 

His heart is in his throat, and there’s a strange fluttering in his chest. Matt inwardly curses Anakin. The name had come out easier than what he’d thought, and he fears what it could bring. It echoes in his ears like a bad omen.

 

Khoshekh gestures towards the couch. They should negotiate.

 

Matt looks at the pile with his jacket and his blaster. Unfazed, Khoshekh leaves him by the wall and starts rummaging through the cupboards again. She fishes out two huge mugs that Matt most definitely didn’t bring into this ship.

 

He looks to Anakin, who does his invisible, ghost equivalent of a shrug. “You should sit down, I suppose,” he says.

 

_Thanks for nothing,_ Matt thinks darkly as he slumps down on the couch. The blaster he puts back in its holster, noting that Khoshekh still wears hers. It’s only fair.

 

“You didn’t need my help,” Anakin says, patiently exasperated.

 

Over by the food synthesizer Khoshekh places one of the cups under the tap. She gives him a questioning look, her finger hovering by the buttons. It takes a good few seconds before Matt realizes she’s asking him what he wants. “Caf,” he says, flustered. It’s the first thing that comes to mind.

 

Khoshekh punches in the order. A big bacta patch is plastered to her side. The blood has made a red splotch in the middle.

 

Anakin nudges Matt. “Ask her something.”

 

He bites his lip, and shifts in his seat, trying to find a position that doesn’t make him feel so damn small.  “You’re Force sensitive,” he says in the end.

 

Khoshekh rumbles, watching as the synthesizer splutters and dark steaming liquid pours from the tap. Yes, she is. And so is he.

 

So she figured out as much. Well, he never actually tried to shield it, not thinking he’d run into another Force user in his own ship. This whole situation is a bit too revealing to be comforting.

 

“Where’d you get your training?” he asks.

 

The Wookie makes a low sound. That’s none of his concern. Where did he?

 

“None of your concern,” Matt replies.

 

She only makes an amused sound. The synthesizer finishes pouring. Khoshekh switches the mugs and places the first one in front of Matt. Punching in another set of commands, she hums. What went wrong with his powers, though?

 

The smell of caf fills the room. It isn’t until it hits his nose Matt realizes how much he needs this. He hesitates, however, before he pick up the mug, considering for a moment why the Wookiee gave him the first serving. But Anakin gives him an encouraging nudge through the Force, so supposedly the drink is unpoisoned. Not that the ghost’s track record in being helpful lately is anything to go by.

 

The caf is strong. It hits his nervous system like a punch after the events of the last half hour or so. Matt takes a good, long gulp, letting the liquid warm him from the inside. The cup easily dwarfs his hand. There seems to be a lot of hot beverages in his life these days.

 

“I was injured,” he says, answering the Wookiee’s question. “Concussion.”

 

Khoshekh considers this, making a doubtful sound. She pulls her cup from under the tap as it stops pouring, and takes a seat in the chair across from him. She rumbles. Nah. That can’t be all there is to it.

 

Anakin’s signature perks up just a little, his attention caught. Matt frowns. “What do you mean that’s can’t be all there is?”

 

Injuries like his don’t come from concussions alone.

 

“Then what?” His voice is impatient.

 

For the first time Khoshekh hesitates. She seems to be mulling her words over as she drinks from her mug. Eventually, she puts it down again and meets his eyes.

 

A terrible event.

 

Matt’s mug burns the fingertips of his left hand, a creeping, slow pain that settles into his skin. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but Khoshekh has the good grace to look away.

 

In his mind, the red blade ignites and his father’s face twists in pain and shock. _Finally. Finally I’ll know peace._ But peace hadn’t come. It was just some nightmarish trick. And he’d played it on himself.

 

Khoshekh clears her throat, the sound loud enough to take him out of the path his mind has gone down. The Wookiee shifts as if trying to find a more comfortable position, and changes the subject.

 

If he’s Kylo Ren then who’s the doofus on the HoloNews?

 

Matt raises his eyebrows. Even if the topic isn’t exactly all that much better, it’s still preferable to the previous one. “I thought you said you didn’t believe me.”

 

No, Khoshekh believes him alright, but it’s still not his real name.

 

“That man’s just an impostor,” Matt says, an underlying anger welling up inside him as he speaks. “I don’t know who they replaced me with.”

 

He feels as if he should kill her for knowing all this. Every person who knows Kylo Ren had once been Ben Organa-Solo has a death sentence hanging over their heads, his family included. Even so, even if Khoshekh now knows the name his parents saddled him with, there’s not much of a chance she’ll figure out the connection between the two.

 

He just want her to get off his ship and be off.

 

He loses patience with the conversation. Anakin thinks he can talk his way out of this? Well then. Let’s give it a go. “Let’s cut to the chase here,” he snaps, “I’m not here to make small talk about my past, I want my ship back.”

 

_Her_ ship, Khoshekh corrects.

 

“You said you won it from Tavra Seks?” Matt says. “Well that guy rigged his suspension field, which means you had no way of winning unless you cheated.”

 

Khoshekh doesn’t deny it, wryly nodding her agreement. But she adds with a pointed look, so did he.

 

Damn it!

 

“You’re underestimating her,” Anakin whispers in his ear.

 

Khoshekh moves forward, putting one big paw flat on the table. Matt leans back, his shoulder-blades connecting with the couch. Shit, but it’s been a long time since anyone has been able to intimidate him. What is worse, he doesn’t think she’s even trying. Khoshekh makes a low sound. Who’s Armitage?

 

Blinking, Matt tries to think when she might have fished it out of his head, but Khoshekh never did any such thing. She can tell a lie from the truth, but she hasn’t tried to force information from him yet. The last time he said that name out loud was back on Lud, when he’d given RQ, the trooper, his little message to Hux.

 

“He’s a First Order General,” Matt tells her.

 

Which one?

 

“Hux,” Matt says. “General Hux.”

 

She sits back in her chair again, rumbling darkly. The soul eater.

 

Matt frowns. “Soul eater?”

 

Soul eater. The one who raises the ones who have been lost. Child taker.

 

That name makes sense at least. Child taker. The rows and rows of sedated children, and that one girl in their midst, fighting her shackles as well as the drugs in her system. A shiver runs down Matt’s spine, a remnant of the shock he’d felt when Nine had pulled the doors to the crate open and revealed what was inside. Yes. Child taker. It’s an apt name.

 

“Why? What’s it to you?” Matt asks.

 

Khoshekh considers him for a long time. Her stare is so intense, something in Matt prepares to ward off a mental probe. But none comes.

 

She makes a questioning sound. How are his navigational skills?

 

“Navigational skills?” This conversation is taking a strange turn.

 

Khoshekh nods. She’d like to hire him as her copilot.

 

“Now wait a second!” For the first time Matt leans forward, rising from his seat into her space instead of the other way around. He points accusingly with a finger. “This is not settled yet, in case you have forgotten. As far as I’m concerned the Marauder is still mine.”

 

Sure. Khosheks leans back, bringing her mug with her. She’ll give it to him, if he’ll help her out first.

 

Her confidence makes him falter. There’s no part of this situation where Matt sees a way to get the upper hand, unless Anakin decides to finally settle it once and for all. But the ripe old bastard makes no moves to step in.

 

“Hang on,” he says when Matt looks to him, as if he’s some noisy child disturbing him during the NewsHolo. “I want to know what she’s talking about?”

 

Matt is so glad he’s dead.

 

“What do you want from me?” he grumbles, settling down into the couch again and crosses his arms over his chest.

 

Khoshekh puts her mug down. Her paw settles on the table, fingers tapping a soft rhythm. She wants to dismantle the First Order, starting with ending the trooper program.

 

Matt just stares. Anakin’s signature changes from curious to approving, pleased. “We have an ally,” he says.

 

A laugh bursts from Matt’s throat. He leans one elbow on the table and rubs his hand over his face, shaking his head. Seems the entire universe has set him up to meet this Wookiee, just like he’s been cursed to suffer this bond he has with a girl who hates him. What is more, Khoshekh has a goal that runs pretty close to his own. To top that off, now his grandfather is encouraging him to take the deal. Matt lets his hand flop to the table. He just wants his ship back.

 

“You want to hire me?”

 

Khoshekh shakes her head. No she doesn’t. She’d much rather be off on her own, doing her thing. But she saw him on the ground today, and she believes they could come to an agreement that could benefit them both in the long run.

 

The contents of his cup have started to cool; the ceramic no longer burns his fingers. Matt looks around at their surroundings, the cupboards were he’d stored his provisions, and where Khoshekh has done the same. The backpack he left on the table which has fallen to the floor, as well as the big one filled with explosives stashed in the corner. It’s been jostled around since the last time he laid eyes on it, which can’t be very safe.

 

Anakin has gone silent, but his signature is expectant. Why he’s suddenly set out to have Matt join forces with this Wookiee is beyond Matt. But for now he’s neither pushing or discouraging. No, Anakin is waiting for Matt to make his choice.

 

Oh, for fuck’s sake…. Alright.

 

_Alright._

 

Pressing his lips together Matt lets out a heavy breath through his nose. “I’m looking for a super weapon,” he tells Khoshekh. At her questioning look he goes on. “The First Order is building another Starkiller Base. If we’re going to help each other out I believe finding it and destroying it should be our first priority.”

 

Khoshekh leans forward over the table, her expression set in a display of dark interest. Obviously she has not considered the possibility of another killer planet. She is all ears now. Khoshekh whines. How does he intend to find such a thing in this whole galaxy?

 

“I’ll have to get close to General Hux somehow. He alone will know.”

 

She studies him intently. Matt can practically hear the gears turning in her head. Nodding slowly, she purrs. She can help him with that.

 

Just like that, it’s settled. With some vague premonition that this can’t possibly end with both of them coming out the other side alive, Matt lets it wash over him. He suddenly has another partner in crime, and they’re not in the form of his grandfather’s Force ghost.

 

Anakin’s signature emits a definite aura of satisfaction. Matt hopes he’s happy, although he can’t possibly imagine how Anakin thinks this will benefit him.

 

Across the table Khoshekh notes her mug is empty. Grunting she gets up from her chair.

 

“Wait,” Matt says. She halts. “Earlier you said you believed me when I told you I am Kylo Ren.”

 

Khoshekh nods. Yes?

 

“Then why?”

 

She tilts her head. Why what?

 

“I came from the organisation you hate, and now you’re trusting me to help you destroy it. It can’t be as simple as that. Why?”

 

With a low whine Khoshekh turns her eyes down to her paws. She stares between them as if seeing something that’s no longer there.

 

Humans don’t have a monopoly on the darkside.

 

“What do you mean?” Matt asks. Something inside him says this is a difficult topic for her, and he regrets the question.

 

Khoshekh takes her gaze away from her paws and directs it at him. He knows the Empire enslaved Wookiees when it rose right?

 

Anakin’s signature becomes strange. Matt says nothing as Khoshekh goes on. The Empire also tried to make them into soldiers, but when brainwashing proved futile, they turned to breeding.

 

“Oh,” Anakin says, his Force signature clearly unsettled.

 

Yes. Matt has read about it. In his studies into the working of the old Empire he’d come across this information. A footnote in a text concerning the origin of the stormtroopers. Bottled warriors, blank slates straight from the artificial womb.

 

“The project was a failure,” Anakin says. “The Wookiees they raised became great warriors yes, but in the end they couldn’t be controlled on the battlefield. They didn’t discriminate between friends or foes, they attacked everyone who got too close. Some might even say they strategically went for their handlers. Our scientists believed them to be feeble minded, and Wookiees were classified as a non sentient species. The Empire was still trying to find some profit in the project by the time the war ended. I believe all the subjects would have been destroyed before the Rebel Alliance found them.”

 

Khoshekh shakes her head, her eyes no longer on Matt. She stares blankly into space. As the hairs rise on the back of his neck, Matt realizes, she’s no longer addressing him.

 

No, Khoshekh tells Anakin. Four of them survived.


	13. Girl Trouble and Bad Omens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our boy ties himself into a knot.
> 
> Possibly for a good reason...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a brief instant of self harm in this chapter. 
> 
> I feel as if I should point out that this is a story about people with certain issues written by someone who doesn't have much experience with said issues to begin with. Then again, this story is set in space so there's that.
> 
> Thanks to theanu and applesith for helping me out with this chapter!

 

A memory.

Bedtime stories were a normal part of Ben’s early childhood, before he decided they were not for him any longer. Leia never read from books. Her long, brown, hair would fall over his blankets as she leaned over his bed, with one hand mimicking the actions of the characters she spoke of. Ben would twine a lock of it around his fingers as he listened to the fantastic fairy tales of heroes traveling the galaxy in search of adventure.

His mother looked every part the princess some people would call her. Warm, gentle and kind. A stark opposite of his father's clever, crooked smile. The first time Ben remembers meeting Lando Calrissian, the man had bowed to him and called him the prince of thieves. It was the kind of game an adult would engage a child in, but to a boy who’d just started out understand the world, the moniker had stuck. He’d begun to imagine himself as the heroes in his mother’s stories.

When the fairytales were done, Ben would tell Leia stories of his own. He can’t remember them, he just knows he was spinning codswallop on the spot. Anything to keep her there for as long as possible. Because when his mother left the room, there’d always be other monsters, real ones, waiting in the darkness.

It went on until one day, he’d simply let them in.

In his dream, light filters through summer curtains as Leia tells a particularly good adventure. Ben has made her recite it a thousand times before, but he wants it again, because this story is one of the rare ones that alway ends in victory.

But dreams are fickle in nature. At some point his mother becomes somebody else. This woman’s face is hidden in the dark. Towering like a giant over a child.

“What did you do? Tell me girl, what did you do?”

The scene shifts and a scrawny boy with sunken eyes stands in front of him. “Give me that, Rey. I’m so hungry!”

Shift.

A battlefield. On the ground lie bodies with familiar faces. FN-2187 has a smoking hole in his chest where his heart used to be. Somewhere nearby the Resistance pilot Poe Dameron lies with a deep crack in his pilot’s helmet. Behind him….

Matt kneels down by the tiny body. The girls still wears the rags she wore when he’d found her on the Halcyon, her sleek, black hair still shorn close to her scalp. When he grabs her by the shoulders, she opens her eyes. Her lips part and a horrible rasping whispers between them.

“Don’t be angry,” she says.

Beyond the trail of bodies, two people are locked in battle. Rey parries her opponent’s solid red blade with increasing difficulty. The matte black mask of the figure she fights has no marks. A seal of anonymity, pitiless and uncaring.

The Knight traps Rey in a saber lock. Red spreads from one blade to another, an infesting disease. As Rey resists with gritted teeth, the light reflected on her face turns entirely scarlet. In one fell swoop the black-masked Knight breaks their lock. Rey’s saber sails out of her hands and is extinguished. The Knight skewers her through to the hilt.

_Wake up._

The chaotic scene is replaced with calm. Every little sound reverberates through the large chamber inside the oscillator. On the bridge stands Kylo Ren facing his mother. This time there’s no hesitation. As soon as the two meet, Leia is dead. Her body falls into a half moon circle around his feet. Her long, brown hair, now streaked with white, fans into a halo around her head.

_Wake up, Ben!_

His eyes spring open. Matt’s heart races like he’s fallen down the abyss of his own dream and woken just before he reached the bottom. The bed is blessedly solid beneath him.

When he turns his head it’s not to the darkness of his new cabin. Or, it is his cabin, but the light illuminating the space is coming from her side.

Weeks without communication and now she’s right there. Matt jerks up off his bed, swinging his legs over its edge. Rey stands in the middle of her own room, wearing only a light top and her leggings. Her bare feet and ankles breaking out in goosebumps, hair falling in loose waves just past her shoulders.

“What was that?” There’s a wild streak to Rey’s eyes. She speaks in a hushed tone as though there’s people nearby she doesn’t want listening in. Her hair’s sleep-tousled and her chest rises in tandem with his own, as if they’ve become so in sync during the night that their bodies are now breathing as one.

It’s been so long since their last conversation. To face her now, as not just a voice in his head, but so real he could reach out and feel the soft fabric of her top underneath his fingertips, makes his head spin.

Matt touches his temple. Images from the dream are chasing each other’s tails, one after another round the inside of his skull.

“Was that real?” Rey’s glare bores into him. “Was that prophecy?”

His right arm hangs limply by his side, the wrist twisted in that odd angle it usually assumes when he’s not wearing his prosthetic. He slept in his pants. Matt discarded the sleeve on the floor before going to bed, along with his sweatshirt. He’d rather not have the lasting injuries she inflicted on him on display, but now she’s here and he guesses there’s nothing for it.

“How should I know?” he says and pushes off the bed to pick up his sweatshirt, not bothering with the sleeve. If she hasn’t noticed by now, she will if he wrestles the prosthetic on in front of her. A bolt of pain shoots through his shoulder as he moves, and he suppressed a wince.

“That was your dream wasn’t it?” she asks.

“It’s not like I can tell the difference with you in my head.”

Dressing with just one arm is second nature to him now. There’s a trick to pulling the sweatshirt up his bad arm first. Technique or no technique, it’s enough of a humiliating process without an audience, and the eyes on his back as he pulls the garb over his head don’t make it any better.

When he emerges from inside the sweatshirt, Rey’s frowning. He bites the inside of his lip and avoids her confounded expression. She moves her right shoulder, a rotating motion, as if testing its range. He steps into his boots, but doesn’t bother with the laces.

Let her stare.

Rey’s eyes move from his arm to the bag of belongings that is the only thing marking his cabin as anything out of the ordinary. It’s a pretty nondescript room, with nothing on the walls and no furniture except a desk and a chair in one corner. For some reason Khoshekh had preferred the smaller of the Marauder’s two available cabins. He’s hidden his blaster in the small space under his bed, far away from prying eyes. If Rey saw it, she’d be asking questions.

“Was there something you wanted?” he says tersely.

Rey takes in his surroundings. Matt forces his face into a smooth mask. The bed on her side, which looks like it’s in a barracks somewhere, does not appear unmade, despite the fact she’s obviously been sleeping not that long ago. He wonders for a second if she’s controlling what he sees. He really needs to learn how their bond works.

“What’s going on with you?” Rey asks. “What’s this place?”

Matt shrugs, face flat. “The usual,” he says. “We’re in space.”

They’re actually not, but everything’s relative. If she’s on a different planet then to her he’s in space.

From the hallway outside his door comes the muffled sound of Wookiee feet stomping past. As much as he’d like to give nothing away, he still can’t keep from flicking his eyes in its direction. Khoshekh is humming tunelessly to herself, the way she does.

Rey follows the line of his glance, but appears none the wiser, looking as if his reaction was just a trick of her eyes. But there’s something wary in her manner when she turns back to him.

That doesn’t seem right somehow. Not since before the interrogation tilted in her favour has he seen something like that in Rey. An impulse to reach out and smooth out that frown with his fingertips has him steeling himself. Wary or not, Rey would probably have his arm for that. He should know, he has the scars to prove it.

“The dream.” Rey says it as if she’s testing his state of mind.

“What about it?”

“Do you not have anything to say?”

“Sometimes dreams are just dreams, Rey.”

“Maybe,” she says. “Except that didn’t feel like just a dream.”

His mother dead at his feet, run through with his own blade. She’s right. It didn’t feel like just a dream. It was about as real as the visions he had as a child.

Matt brushes his working hand across his face. “Why don’t you come right out and say it?”

“Say what?”

“Don’t play coy,” he snaps. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Something uneasy flashes through their bond and is gone. Rey looks as if what he’s talking about has just dawned on her. “Would you do it then?” Her voice is tentative, as if she doesn’t want to know the answer. “I know you don’t want to.”

At least she understands that much. He might have goaded her into saying it, but now she’s putting words to his fears. The truth is the nightmare did fuck his insides all up. The scene plays out again in his head. He’s never had a vision that didn’t come true before.

“Ben?”

He thinks of the old dreams. The nightmares he had as a kid, prophecies granted to a child that didn’t know what to do with them. He looks at Rey, and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He doesn’t know.

Rey takes a tentative step closer. Her brow is lowered into a quizzical frown. A lock of her hair falls over the delicate line of her collarbone as she actually leans in, her eyes searching his. Whatever she finds there, it does nothing to soothe her. Her eyebrows arch, and her lips part with a shocked little exhale.

What can he tell her when he doesn’t have an answer that would please her?

The apprehension on Rey’s face morphs into a mix of disbelief and anger. “So, it’s that easy,” she says, nearly spitting the words. “I see you found peace in your father’s death after all.”

Her words dig deep. He’s been carrying around an open wound in his chest ever since his father’s life force extinguished. There’s not a day that goes by in which he doesn’t remind himself he has only himself to blame. Does she not feel it, or is she just driving the knife deeper?

No, it’s not that easy, but how is he suppose to make her see that? Shaking his head, Matt clenches his jaw. He would pace if he could, but in this little cabin there’s nowhere to go. Instead he meets her wrathful glare with his own. “You think you know so much don’t you?” he sneers.

“I think I know enough,” Rey retorts. “You can’t expect me to be thrilled about being attached to you like this.”

She twists his insides around like a spinning top. Every fucking time. For once, just once, he’d like to do to her what she does to him, to see it on her face.

Matt takes a step towards her, and has the bitter pleasure of witnessing the small signs of Rey steeling herself.

“You’re not exactly perfect yourself,” he says. “Who was that boy?”

“Who?”

“The boy you keep dreaming about. The one who keeps saying he’s hungry? What? Did you not share your one portion that day? Is that why you’re so filled up with guilt about him?”

Rey’s hands curl into fists, her mouth forming a tense line. Oh, he hit a nerve there. Not so much the luminous being now is she? Matt offers her a mock smile that only touches his mouth.

“Don’t talk as if you know anything about my life,” Rey bites out.

He steps right up to her. “If I’m so wrong, then why don’t you tell me all about it?”

It’s not as if he expected her to snap. What happens is anything but. There’s a moment of what could be actual fear in Rey’s eyes, then it’s gone. She works her jaw, her eyebrows coming down in an resentful expression. Her face solidifies into a stony mask.

“I hate you,” she whispers with utter calm.

Ah, there it is at last. At least now he doesn’t need to wonder where he has her. She has made her feelings perfectly clear.

Matt scoffs. He’s already moving towards the door. “Yeah?” he practically yells, kicking the door so it will slide open. “Then how about you leave me the fuck alone?”

If Rey intended to follow she probably could have; his mental barriers have seen better days. But to his great relief she lets him go. In the place where his mind is linked with hers, the bond becomes nothing but a whisper as he leaves.

Silence resides inside the galley, despite the fact that he knows Khoshekh is in there. Matt walks down towards it, only to make a beeline for the boarding ramp at the intersection of the two main hallways. The space is too small all of a sudden and the ghost of his father is too close right now thanks to the kriffing Wookiee that has made herself at home on his own kriffing ship.

He lumbers out onto the ground outside before the ramp has fully descended. In the gray light of dawn, the small village built below the hillside they’d landed on the night before, has become visible. Khoshekh had insisted they’d go there. Apparently she has a guy who can help them out with a modification to the Marauder’s stealth system.

Instead of making his way down the path towards the village, Matt walks around the landing feet of the ship and stomps off in the opposite direction. He follows an animal trail conveniently worn into the hillside in a horizontal line around the mountain.

The weeds that grow here reaches his ankles, shivering softly in the cool breeze blowing over the landscape. Yellow buds of some kind of lumpy flower dot the ground everywhere. He kicks a cluster of the plant as he goes by and a cloud of bright-colored leaves flies up in front of him.

The worst part isn’t Rey. It’s not even that she hates him: she has good reason to after all. It’s the visions that keep replaying over and over in his head that have him running off to lick his wounds. Leia falling to the ground at his feet, the shock in Rey’s eyes as she’s impaled on that red blade. The little girl. The Force sensitive girl from the crate. Is this what he brought her out of that forsaken box for?

So that’s it then. His life is coming around full circle. It all comes together like some clusterfuck of looming disaster. He was never meant to escape his destiny. The wind grows stronger as he walks, the ground more rocky and unmaneuverable, but he keeps on going because to stand still is to let the universe catch up with him.

His foot slips on moss. With his boots untied and his right arm just dangling there, all useless, Matt stumbles, going down on his hand and knees. For several seconds he stays there, feeling how the rocky ground has scraped the palm of his good hand, and how his right shoulder aches from the fall, the bite of injury. There’s barely any blood when he turns his palm to inspect the damage, but the flesh is bruised and red.

There’s a scar in his mind, someplace close to where his bond with Rey has taken root, which had once belonged to his mother. Even after so many years, brushing against it is like a reflex. The motion registers with an ache that has somehow faded. There’s nothing there.

_You sent me away._

Maker, but he wants to hate her. He does, but he never could. When push comes to shove, he much rather never see Leia again than repeat what he did to Han Solo.

He lifts his hand to his shoulder, to the spot where Rey’s swing had cut through his skin. Folding his fingers over the muscle there he presses his thumb into the faded scar. The pain is dull at first, but sharpens into agony that has him gritting his teeth, forgetting all else for just a moment.

It’s the same story all over again. He couldn’t escape the visions he had as a boy, so what makes him think he can do it now? He was just starting to get somewhere with his plans, and now his fate is reeling him back inn. The idea was dead at conception.

What the hell is he doing? Fuck.

_Fuck._

_I can’t do this._

In the midst of his self pity, it's a wonder he even notices the uninvited audience. All of a sudden the ground up ahead moves. The long snouted head of a creature rises from between the rocks. Its neck is longer than Matt himself is tall, and its bottomless black-eyed stare fixes on him. Its hide mimics the colour of its stony surroundings, with even green splotches here and there imitating moss. All thought of prophecy vanishes, as it dawns on Matt that he’s about to become breakfast.

At last, all his problems will be solved.

But the creature only studies him, with something like a question in its eyes. What kind of a pathetic little thing could he be? A melodious sound, loud and achingly mournful, sounds when it opens its beak like mouth. It lifts its gaze skywards. With an incredible, ground shaking agility it launches itself into the blue. Matt watches, eyes wide, as it spreads its huge, scaly wings midair. It swoops over the treetops below and continues onwards. With surprising speed it grows smaller against the snow covered mountains lining the horizon, leaving only an echo of that sorrowful cry in its wake.

Matt follows the creature’s flight until it’s nothing but a dot in the sky, and when that too is gone he directs his gaze outwards over the sweeping landscape below. For the first time he actually sees the planet Khoshekh has brought him to during the night. There’s green everywhere, with yellow flowers covering the hill he’s on. Far below the ridge he’s crouched on, the ground flattens out into a forest and parts for a great river running in grand, sinuous lines towards an ocean between the mountains far to his right. As he takes it all in, the gray light of morning slowly gives way to the singular sun stretching its beams across the landscape. It’s nearly serene.

Where the kriff is this place? Khoshekh had called the planet Euredythe, but he’s never really heard of it. All he knows is they’re somewhere in the outer rims.

Matt’s very own jacket and scarf lands in a curled up ball in front of him. He’s glaring at it when the packed provisions and the canteen of water comes flying as well.

“Your continuing effort to seek out your own demise never seize to amaze me,” Anakin haughtily remarks. “For future reference, death by hypothermia and starvation is one of the less pleasant ways to go. Don’t get me started on being eaten alive.”

Oh, he can jest. Sarcasm seems to be Anakin’s only mode when it comes to handling anything. But now that it has been brought to Matt’s attention he becomes painfully aware of the hollowness of his stomach and the chill of the atmosphere. He’s shivering in the cold wind. With his scraped-up hand Matt picks up the jacket and the scarf and gingerly puts them on. It takes several minutes without his prosthetic. When that’s done he grabs the protein bar from the ground.

Anakin lets him eat in silence. Matt has the impression he’s staring out over the forest. It hits him again just how strange it is that he can tell what Anakin is doing, even if he can’t see him.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what that was all about,” Anakin says when he’s brushing the crumbs of the protein bar of his jacket.

Matt pushes his hair out of his eyes. Anakin didn’t exactly have to eavesdrop on him to understand that something was up; he’d been practically shouting by the end of his encounter with Rey.

If he could avoid saying anything about it at all he would, but as it is, he could use some answers.

“Do you think we can escape our fate?”

All at once Anakin’s attention centres on him in a different way, like someone eying another person from the side.

“You had a vision,” Anakin states. “Kriffing wonderful. I bet they were full of doom. Pesky things. Never did anyone any good if you ask me.”

Matt breathes out. Something in the cloyed way his grandfather speaks pierces through his cloudy outlook. “It was full of death,” he says.

“Of course it was,” Anakin replies flatly. “Can’t have people get their hopes up about their future. No! They might go out and do something worthwhile with their lives.”

A muscle pulls at the corner of Matt’s mouth. He puts his elbow on his knee and places his face in his palm. The impulse to laugh only lasts for a second, but it’s enough for him to open his mouth and finally talk. With as few halting words he can manage he gives Anakin the gist of it, all the destruction, Rey and the unfamiliar Knight, his mother. Some parts he leaves out, like the ones that seems to be entirely from Rey’s perspective. Like the hungry boy. It doesn’t seem like something that’s his to share.

Anakin doesn’t reply right away. For long moments there’s only the rustling of the wind through the vegetation covering the hillside. In the distance, creatures like the one Matt met on this trail sail round in circles over the white mountaintops, perhaps spying something interesting or edible far below.

“I had dreams of my mother,” Anakin begins, silently now as if pulling the words from the deepest, most hidden parts of his memories. “She was in pain.”

So he’s finally about to know what happened to this elusive mother Anakin always avoids talking about. As if answering the unspoken thought, the ghost goes on. “I couldn’t save her. I waited too long. She died in my arms.”

All his life he’s been looking for ways he was or could be like his own fabled grandfather. Well, here they are, lining up one by one in a neat row. Unlike Anakin, however, he seems destined to hold the blade that kills, not fail to stop its path. There’s a world of difference between the two.

“Maybe I couldn't have stopped that from happening no matter what I did,” Anakin continues. “Maybe these events were planned out that way right from the start. But the things that followed were no one’s fault but my own. Prophecies are self-serving assholes. They only do one out of two things. Either they fill up your head with fantastic visions of grandeur, or fill you with doubt of the worst kind. None of which will do you any good. In the end, everything I feared the most came to pass, not because they were foretold, but because I made them happen. No one tore my family apart, I did that well enough on my own. All because I was too scared, thickheaded and proud to see what was really going on.”

Kriff but it never fails to shock Matt just how different Anakin’s perspective on what had happened back then is from his own. He remember tales of an immense warlord with a righteous vision. But when Anakin speaks it’s like Darth Vader was just another character in the stories Leia used to tell. Was he ever real at all?

“I know there are... topics you won’t talk about,” Anakin goes on after a moment's pause. “But there will come a time when you’ll have to face why things happened the way they did and why you became that person you were. Escaping your past is impossible, even if no one ever figures you out, you’ll still remember who you were. But the future is not set in stone, dreams be damned.”

“Are you telling me I should ignore them?” Matt asks.

“I’m telling you the same thing I told you back before you started out,” Anakin replies. “Fuck your destiny. No one decides what you should do but you. If anything should happen we’ll deal with it as it comes.”

“You think it can be prevented?”

“I think the fact that you’re out here having a meltdown about it is a good start.”

Matt huffs and shakes his head weakly. The thought of his own extreme reaction to the dreams has his ears heating up, and he brushes his hand over his eyes to hide his face. His future still looks impossibly dark, but something in the way Anakin views it somehow makes it more manageable, if only just a little.

“You know,” Anakin says, “you really should give that girl a break. If what you say is possible, she just witnessed her own death. You can’t expect someone who spent most of their lives surviving from one day to the next to just stay calm about it.”

A twinge of guilt has Matt pressing his mouth into a thin line. Witnessing her getting speared like that had woken phantom pains in him, as though that lightsaber had burned through his own torso. In a way it would. But in the depth of his own self pity he’d not thought about what it would be like seeing things from Rey’s side.

Still though, he can’t get past the accusations she threw his way.

“I’m not the one misconstruing reality,” he tells Anakin. “If she’s so intent on blaming me for everything then I’m not going to waste my time trying to stop her.”

There’s this feeling of eyes rolling to Anakin’s signature. “Have you seen the HoloNews lately?” he says.

Matt bites the corner of his mouth. No, he hasn’t. It seem that everywhere the war rages on, Fake Kylo Ren is always somewhere in the middle of it. It’s enough to make his stomach churn.

“That impostor of yours is wreaking havoc on the galaxy in the name of the First Order.” Anakin says. “Of course that upsets her. She thinks she’s connected to that guy.”

“Well, that’s not my kriffing fault. She shut me out first.”

“And you followed,” Anakin scolds. “I know thing always seems to stack themselves up against you, but at some point you have to realize a lot of that is on you. It’s not fair to expect her to show you any understanding when you refuse to give her all the information. As I recall you had other reasons for keeping her out of the loop too. You didn’t want her keeping your secrets after all. As valiant as that is, it might come back and bite you both in the ass one of these days.”

The gray light that permeated everything has long since given way to the sun. While it probably won’t reach the hillside they’re on until noon, the rest of the landscape is bathed in brilliant colors. The wind is no longer as cold as it was earlier.

Matt’s stomach rumbles. He might not be cold, but he’s still hungry.

Letting his shoulders sag, he leans against the rock at his back. Since when did Anakin start making this much sense? Maker, it’s not like he couldn’t have come to these conclusions on his own, they all seem so obvious when laid out in front of him like this. It’s just that he keeps tying himself up in a knot so often, about his past, his family. Particularly when Rey is around. Maybe _especially_ when Rey is around.

Did he ever really stop being so hung up on her? She’s like a tune that has gotten stuck in his head, that he could never quite finish. Discovering his equal, and having that person not reciprocating that notion... It’s been a bitter pill to swallow.

“Do you feel that?” Anakin asks. Matt doesn’t know what he means, but he can just imagine the ghost sitting on a rock nearby, wind rustling his robes and hair, staring out over all this green with content. “This place has healing powers.”

Directing his gaze outwards, Matt stretches his senses. Maybe it’s a ghost thing, cause he can’t detect anything particular about this planet. No spots of concentrated Force, of either light or darkness. But when the cool soothing wind brushes against his face, he finds himself closing his eyes to it, taking deep breaths of crystal fresh air.

“Padme brought me to a place like this once.” There’s something wistful about the way Anakin talks. “You know you think you’ve seen everything if you’ve been to the megacities. Coruscant, all of them. But few things can compare to this. I wish she were here.”

This is something different from the forced way Anakin would try to talk to Matt about family back in the beginning. Right now it simply seems to come out uninhibited. Turns out if you get Anakin Skywalker going, he really gets going.

But this is getting a little too sugary for Matt’s comfort. It’s a good time to end this conversation. He needs food.

“You’re a sap,” he says.

“Maybe,” Anakin replies. “Rey’s seen you with bed hair.”

He wants to crawl under a rock and die.


	14. Bridges that won't stay burned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are messages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on my summer break in a few days, so I won't be updating for at least a month. But I'll keep writing, and hopefully I'll have at least a couple of chapters finished once everything's back to normal.
> 
> Thanks again for your constant support! It truly is what keeps me going.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

When Matt gets back to the Marauder, the landing ramp stands wide open and Khoshekh is nowhere to be found.

 

“She went down into the village,” Anakin had said, before he’d faded into the background. It’s like he’d simply gone into another room in the ship for some peace, to do whatever it is dead people do. Matt’s still waiting to see those tea cozies.

 

He glares at the lowered boarding ramp. Then he stomps his way inside, his temper right back to boiling, if for different reasons than earlier. It’s aggravating enough that he’s no longer the only one who can speak to Anakin. That’s a new fact of life he just can’t get used to. Anakin on the other hand, has no problem with Khoshekh’s presence in their lives; he even seems to welcome it. Hell, he’d been graciously open about having been Darth Vader in his previous life. And how had Khoshekh reacted? She’d merely shrugged and said she had a feeling that might be the case. And that had been that. For all intents and purposes the Wookiee and the ghost seems to be getting along just fine.

 

The only one who appears to be chafing is Matt. It’s one thing to wake up in the morning to the voice of his grandfather’s ghost in deep conversation with someone they’ve only just met, it’s quite another knowing that in some ways Anakin set things up so this would happen. Maker knows why.

 

Khoshekh seem utterly unconcerned with the amount of space she takes up on the Marauder. She always claims the pilot’s chair, she stocks the galley full of smelly Wookiee provisions, she sheds everywhere, and she always hogs the ‘fresher in the morning. If that’s not enough, now she’s also taking liberties with  _ Matt’s  _ ship, leaving it wide open without supervision for anyone to enter at their leisure. He could go into the village and find her, but if he’s learned anything about Khoshekh she’ll probably not pay heed to anything he has to say. But for now Matt’s stomach has persuaded him to leave it til after he’s had a proper breakfast before he decides what to do about the Wookiee.

 

Entering his own cabin is like going into the dragon's den, like he’d find Rey in there even while he’s not around. But the bond is quiet and she’s as far from him mentally as the two of them can go. His cabin is his own again. Still, it’s as if she’s there, her eyes on his bare back as he wrestles the prosthetic back on. Just the memory of her has him checking over his shoulder again and again, antsy and exposed.

 

_ I hate you. _

 

Yeah well, it’s not as if he didn’t already know as much. It’s about damn time he’d simply accepted it. He pulls his sweatshirt back over his head and smooths the wrinkles in it down at the front. His eyes falls on the part of the room where Rey’s bed had appeared earlier.

 

Hatred leads to suffering. That was something Luke used to say. How did it go? Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to suffering. But whose suffering? He could say his own, but in the wake of is conversation with Anakin this morning, the constant trickle of self pity has started to feel old. There’s a bone tired ache in his chest, like a vague echo of what had made him fall apart in that moment in Adilet’s office. It slowly dawns on him, as he stands there fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt, staring at the scrapes in the gray bulkhead but barely seeing them: if Rey comes back and starts up another argument, he’s not going to take the bait. He no longer wants to fight her.

 

Leave her be, she has enough on her plate. Jedi training isn’t exactly a stroll in the park. Not to mention she might have her mind occupied with trying not to catch her own death if what they saw in their shared vision is true. That sabre spreading its scarlet light across her face, overwhelming the blue of her own. Could it come true?

 

The quiet hum of their bond has become his constant companion, however unwelcome the unpredictability of it is. If that hum were to suddenly be torn from him... He couldn’t say what would happen, but it feels as if they’re so entwined by now that the rest of his mind would go with her.

 

He goes into the ‘fresher to splash some water on his face. Then he half-heartedly arranges his hair into something more presentable than the nest he usually wakes up with, trying not to think too much about what he must have looked like earlier this morning. Reasonably satisfied, he goes hunting for something to quell his hunger with. 

 

It’s on his way back out of the galley he almost collides with a wall of fur. Matt doesn't even have time to flatten himself against the wall, before the huge creature brushes past him, nearly knocking his caf out of his hand. The Wookiee, not Khoshekh, but a new Wookiee, pays no attention to Matt as he ambles soundlessly in the direction of the cockpit, sniffing the air as he goes. Matt curses loudly just as Khoshekh enters right after the newcomer.

 

He wipes his hand on the front of his sweatshirt. “Who’s this?” he snaps, belatedly remembering Anakin’s advice not to anger the person who’s keeping his ship hostage. As if Anakin isn’t the reason behind his ship being held hostage in the first place. 

 

Khoshekh purs. That’s their guy. Iawko.

 

Matt sighs. This is the one who’s going to improve the Marauder’s stealth functions? This lumbering thing who’s taking his time sniffing every little crack in the bulkhead on his way down towards the cockpit. Iawko shares Khoshekh’s unusual size for a Wookiee, his head brushing the ceiling whenever he stands up to his full height. Could it be Matt has met another one of her little group of Empire survivors? This one is at the very least not Force sensitive as far as he can tell.

 

Khoshekh barks at Iawko, who snaps his head in their direction at once, distracted from his quest, blinking like a convor. It’s a behaviour so unbecoming for a warrior, Matt withdraws his previous assumption. Khoshekh coos. Waving one of her huge paws around his crown of hair she tells Iawko he is to call this one Matt.

 

Iawko’s reply is a look of doubtfulness. Matt has the unhappy feeling this one does not believe it’s his real name either. But Khoshekh just shrugs and that seems to be enough. Iawko is back to sniffing the walls, quickly finding his way to the Marauder’s computer room next to the cockpit.

 

“That’s the guy you were talking about?” Matt asks, dubious.

 

Khoshekh nods. Iawko’s made modifications to all the ships she’s ever owned.

 

“Ships?” Matt snaps his head to her. “As in plural? Past tense?”

 

She bleats an affirmative.

 

“What did you do to them?” Matt asks, but the way she tilts her head slowly as she considers the question has him reeling. “You know what. I don’t want to know.”

 

Khoshekh’s shoulders shake, as if his distress is funny to her. Damn mutt. She’s been poking at his composure ever since they struck the deal, testing the edges of his patience. Just another reason to see this mission through as soon as possible.

 

Khoshekh takes another glance towards where Iawko has disappeared to, then hums. She didn’t know Matt had a girl.

 

He supposes it would have been to much to ask that she wouldn't hear his argument with Rey through the door. If anything Khoshekh seems to have very keen hearing, even for a Wookiee. It wouldn’t surprise him if Anakin had taken some small liberty to explain the bond situation to her.

 

Matt works his jaw. Just how much does she know about him now? At this rate he’ll have no secrets left from her by the end of the week.

 

“I don’t have a girl.”

 

Why?

 

“I… I just don’t. She’s not my girl, alright!”

 

Khoshekh rumbles. Is not-his-girl going to get in the way of their mission then?

 

“She doesn’t know about the mission.”

 

Why not?

 

“She just doesn’t.” He drinks from his caf. “Is there a reason you left the landing ramp open?”

 

Khoshekh glances towards the doorway, where the sun is shining on the ground outside, and shrugs. She just thinks the mountain air is really nice.

 

Matt presses his mouth into a thin line. “You didn’t think someone would come up here and take the ship?”

 

Like who?

 

Is she laughing at him? Matt can’t be sure, because she’s looking at him like he’s being difficult but also amusing at the same time. 

 

“Anyone!” he says, exasperated.

 

Khoshekh just tilts her head the way she does. Has he ever been to a small place like this?

 

What kriffing difference does that make? Matt has to keep himself from throwing his caf against the wall at her blatant disregard for any common sense. Thieves are everywhere!

 

But before he can answer Khoshekh changes the subject, apparently bored with this one. The Marauder had been hailed earlier after Matt went out this morning. It was that nice Captain of his. Meaning Adilet has made contact.

 

Certain compromises had to be made in the aftermath of his deal with Khoshekh. She didn’t just have a faint idea of kriffing with exterior pockets of the First Order, she’d made concrete and well thought out plans targeting pivotal parts of the organization. Plans she was only willing to shelve if it meant she could help conspire in the sabotage of a weapon of mass destruction. Although there’d been a mournful look to her as she’d laid out what she’d got going so far.

 

It’d been elaborate, and to be honest, promising. Through contacts she was very protective of, Khoshekh had gathered quite a bit of information on the First Order. Most noteworthy was the location of several large storm trooper farms. Matt had stared at the marked locations on her personal holomap, and thought of the constipated expression Hux’s prissy face would make as he would watch his brainchild go up in smoke. Matt’s sorry he didn’t get to see the General’s face when Starkiller had collapsed.

 

But another, much more vivid image had replaced that pallid git’s face in his mind. A scrawny girl, with short black hair and ragged clothes, fighting against her constrains as every other child around her slept.

 

“It’s a damn shame,” Anakin had said, ecchoing Matt’s own thoughts. “All that hard work gone to waste.” It was as if he’d been insinuating something. And to be honest, it really was a damn shame to let the opportunity to weaken Hux’s armies be put on the backburner like this.

 

The solution: siphon the information off to someone else, and that someone would pass it on to another someone who would appreciate it. Like the Resistance for instance.

 

Matt had stopped Anakin before he even had a chance to say what he must have thought was obvious. No, Matt was most certainly not helping the Resistance in the war. They would be helping him, albeit unwittingly, not the other way around. No, certainly not that.

 

Hence, he’d gone on the comm system and hailed the Halcyon. It was worth a shot, considering how Adilet had known people who could get a Force sensitive child into contact with someone who could teach her the ways.

 

Stomach still rumbling, Matt brings his third ration bar of the day into the cockpit. Iawko doesn’t even look up from the console he’s tapping away on when he pauses by the computer room. Too occupied with his job to even notice the human checking in, making sure this new Wookiee isn’t wreaking havoc on his ship. But no, Iawko is fast at work, with a silent concentration that would have made Zapf proud. The Wookiee fills up the small space of the room with ease. Legs bent in awkward angles that doesn’t seem to bother him very much.

 

Matt closes the door to the cockpit behind him and slumps down into the pilot’s chair to hail the Halcyon. Ripping the ration bar open with his teeth he leans back, propping a booted foot on the dashboard, and waits for someone to answer. It doesn’t take long.

 

“Matt!” Jagger’s voice crackles through the comm. “Hey pal!”

 

Matt grimaces. The man’s general lack of adherence to the usual radio jargon is more than a little exasperating.

 

“What you’ve been up to, buddy?” Jagger asks. “Got some more coordinates for us to pass on?”

 

Ah, the downside of this whole thing. People. They just won’t leave him the kriff alone. Now that he’s reestablished contact, he fears the gates of hell will be reopened. If the rest of them start sending him messages, he’ll have to consider unplugging the comm system altogether.

 

“I was hoping to speak to Adilet,” Matt says.

 

“Of course! She’ll be up here in a minute. She’s just a little busy down in the cargo.”

 

Matt sits back, chewing the remains of his ration bar, and thinking idly about going back to the galley for another while he waits. Jagger continues to blabber on about just about everything. The guy can talk, and while he’s not exactly the worst person one could listen to, the amount of niceties he can dole out over the course of one breath borders on the obnoxious.

 

“Did you hear Pia finally popped out the baby a couple of weeks ago?” Jagger says. “She was twelve days overdue you know. She told me to say hi, by the way.”

 

“She still with you guys?” Matt asks despite himself. Jagger’s enthusiasm is sometimes downright infectious. And it’s not as if he can blame Pia for Jagger’s buoyant personality. At least the topics she chose were interesting.

 

“Nah, she’s on mommy leave, but she’ll be back soon. Can’t have too many days off in this economy.”

 

At last Jagger’s voice is replaced by Adilet. She sounds clear but a little winded, crackling through the comm. True to her form, she goes straight to the point. 

 

“How likely am I to get an explanation about whatever the kriff you’re doing if I were to ask for one?” she says, a note of resignation in her voice, like a tired mother who expects nothing less from an unruly child.

 

“I take it your contact came through,” Matt replies.

 

“That and more,” Adilet says. “If my assumptions are correct, that information caused quite a stir. One of their people even made contact. Not-so-subtly wanted to know where we got our information from. But they were very understanding when I told them my source was confidential.”

 

Matt takes a sip of his caf, and grimaces. The contents of his cup have cooled.

 

“General Leia Organa herself sent us her personal thanks,” Adilet adds. “Are you alright, Matt?”

 

“Fine,” he manages to force out between coughs, having swallowed his cold caf down the wrong pipe.

 

Kriffing hell. Out of all the people, why her? Why now? And just after his visions too. A sour feeling spreads in his stomach, but Anakin's words resurface.  _ Fuck his destiny. _

 

For a moment though, it simply doesn’t seem that easy.

 

“You didn’t tell them anything about me?”

 

“What’s there to say, Matt?” Adilet sighs. “It’s not as if you ever told us anything of substance about yourself. Everything we know about you is what we figured out on our own. Half the time I wonder if any of that is even true. Regardless, you said you wanted anonymity.”

 

“Good, good,” he says absentmindedly. “Most of that information came from Khoshekh anyway.” 

 

“I’d hoped that Wookiee would be a good influence on you, but now I’m not so sure.” The comm crackles with a long exhale from the other end. After a moment Adilet goes on. “I didn’t wish to be involved with this war. I was just a young girl under the Empire. The old war was cruel to my homeworld. But I suppose there’s no just sailing the stars forever. In the end there’ll be no planet left that’s free if we don’t at least try to resist.”

 

Another silence, then Adilet sighs again. “Anyway, they told me to extend their thanks to you, whoever you might be.”

 

“Yeah?” Matt says. His hands clench into fists for a second, palms slightly damp. “Right.”

 

“Please curb your enthusiasm,” Adilet says dryly. “That’s not the only reason I contacted you.”

 

Matt draws a deep breath. “Ok?”

 

“I wanted to say be careful. Whatever it is you’re planning, just don’t do anything rash that’ll get you killed. Can you do that for a tired old lady?”

 

Matt sits back in the pilot’s chair.  _ Be careful.  _ He has this brief flash of a memory, of Leia sending him off to his uncle after a short stay with her and Han. She’d always eyed his training sabre with some trepidation. Be careful, she’d told him.

 

“I’ll do my best,” Matt says now, to Adilet.

 

“Something tells me that won’t be enough.”

 

The conversation ends. Outside the viewport, a cloud floats past the sun and moves on, leaving the landscape bathed in warm light once more.

 

Two links. There’d been two links of contact between him and Leia Organa, at the very least; Adilet and some unknown Resistance agent. Back when he traveled with Luke, there’d been a constant back and forth of holovids. Schedules never seemed to align, his family was rarely within reach. It’d felt like an endless circle of talking past each other, before he’d put an end to it and cut contact altogether. 

 

_ Thank you. _ That’s a petty clear message. The reason behind it may have been a result of Khoshekh’s careful planning, but he’s the one who made the decision to send the information to the Resistance in the first place.

 

And made sure people would take note, including his own mother.

 

He ought to keep a low profile.

 

It’s his stomach that gets him up from the pilot’s chair. The disastrous start of this morning must have taken its toll on it somehow. He feels bottomless. When he opens the cockpit’s door he’s met with the quiet clicking from a keyboard from where Iawko has practically locked himself into the computer room.

 

A sound he’s never heard before inside the Marauder comes from the galley. The repetitive slapping of a whisk in a bowl of some substance that’s probably meant to be edible. In the short space of time Matt has known Khoshekh he’s never seen her make anything that didn’t come out of the food synthesizer.

 

Kark it. She’s making a mess in there isn’t she?

 

Before he can make his way up there, however, the comm chirps. Another call from the Halcyon. Matt gives the galley door one last frown then answers the hail.

 

“Forget something Cap?”

 

“It’s Nine,” says the voice at the other end.

 

Matt braces. If there were any part of that crew who would jump at the chance of talking to him again, he certainly wouldn’t have expected it to be Nine. Unless...

 

“We need to meet, man,” Nine says.

 

Matt grimaces. Do they? “Why?

 

“It’s important,” Nine gruffs. “I was contacted.”

 

The question, “by who?” comes out of Matt’s mouth, but he already knows the answer.

 

“Your old friend, techie. I was contacted by the Rogue.”


	15. Friends or Foes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get to see some old faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone and thanks for waiting! I realized going on my vacation this summer that I was feeling slightly burned out from writing, so that's why this has taken so long. Also this chapter was giving me headaches and I’m sure I must have written and deleted it twice before coming up with something that actually worked. Other than that, the fact that it was getting increasingly obvious that I was not going to be able to finish this story before the arrival of TLJ was kinda bumming me out from writing. So I hope you guys will continue to stay with me after the movie is out!
> 
> Just to get everyone up to speed, Euredythe is the planet Matt and company were on the last time we saw them. I realized I hadn’t given it a name, so I’ve made some slight changes to the story to reflect that.
> 
> The last time we saw Matt he was contacted by Nine who recently encountered the Rogue for a second time. What does she want? Find out in this brand new chapter in my never ending slow burn fic SCOUNDREL.
> 
> Without further ado... Enjoy!

On the second night on Euredythe he has another dream. This new dream is, however, unlikely to be prophetic. In it he lets Han take his lightsaber and watches with a curious lack of regret as his father tosses it into the darkness below them. The oscillator silently swallows up his weapon and he’s glad of it.

“Forgive me, son,” Han had said, casting one last look after the lightsaber that was now gone, as if that was what he wanted to apologize for. “Let’s go home.”

Also, unlike with his last dream, Matt wakes up alone in his own head. There’s no sense of Rey or of what she’s feeling. Just to be sure he clamps down on the bond on his end, smothers it til it’s just a thin glimmering thread, like a line of spider silk reflecting the sunlight, before he swings his feet over the edge of his bed, and puts his face in his hand.

They’re all placed out in front of him in his mind's eye, the ghosts of his past. Tiny figurines he lines up like pieces of a dejarik game so he can retrace the moves they took to get where they are now. There’s General Leia Organa, with her endless work of wrangling politicians with their own agendas to follow her lead, Han Solo who never had the patience to stay in one place for long, and Luke Skywalker with his Jedi doctrine and an insatiable need to recreate an order that’s long dead.

Just as he knows that nothing would have been turned magically right had he gone with his father that day, Matt also knows something doesn’t add up with this picture. As if he’s walked into a familiare room from his childhood only to find that the dimensions of the furniture and the space between them doesn’t match his own memories of them, there’s an unsettling newness to it all. What he now sees when he looks at what he remembers of his family is the negative spaces that his own mind must somehow have filled out on its own in a time long past, and the question he’s left with is one he once thought he had the answer to: Why?

_Why did you lie to me?_

 

* * *

 

The Maker help these beings who decided with their very own brainpower to keep living on this forsaken planet.

What in the name of the galaxy possesses its inhabitants to not leave this miserable gathering of dust behind and settle somewhere else? It’s hard to believe that Tatooine had once been a lush planet with sweeping oceans. Even Luke, ever the diplomat, had never had a single good word to say about his old home. There’d always been affection in the way he spoke of the aunt and uncle who’d raised him, but Tatooine? Something had told Ben that if his teacher had been given the chance to aim a death star on his home planet, he’d have blasted the rock into smithereens. Granted that all the life inhabiting it been transferred somewhere safe first of course.

Apparently Luke’s not the only one.

When Nine had told Matt the Halcyon would be on Tatooine within the next week a unworldly groan had resounded throughout the Force, reverberating through the walls of the Marauder. In the days that followed Anakin had grown unusually sullen. It wasn’t unheard of that Matt would find his Force signature hiding in some dark corner of the ship, his disembodied voice muttering morosely about sand. Which is complete banta because they’ve been to desert planets before, so Matt deducts it must be Tatooine itself that is putting his grandfather in such a foul mood. As if the sand would attack him. Aren’t ghosts supposed to be incorporeal anyway? But it’s the only explanation he gets when Anakin refrains from coming with Matt and Khoshekh as they venture out into the dusty streets of Bestine.

He won’t be far off, Anakin had assured him, at which Matt had scoffed. Anakin has been “not far off” before, and he still remembers how well that went.

Their trip to Euredythe had been a short one. This Iawko had finished up his work on the Marauder in no time. He’d stayed clear out of Matt’s way too. Matt probably wouldn’t have gotten much out of this tech-savvy Wookiee had he tried. Not just once, but twice he had walked in on him in the galley, in the middle of a lively conversation with Khoshekh only to experience the meaning of walking straight into a wall of sudden, ringing silence. If Matt was around, Iawko simply didn’t make a peep.

Created and bred by the Empire, as Matt had found out was the case after all, but couldn’t speak a word in front of a human not even half his own size.

Some warrior they had created in this particular Wookiee. Khoshekh at least, as he’s seen with his own eyes, is a force to be reckoned with. Whereas Khoshekh claimed more than her fair share of space - annoyingly so - in Matt's presence, Iawko seemed to shrink in on himself in an attempt to disappear.

Pathetic, had been Matt’s first thought, but then some dormant part of his mind had stirred with a peculiar sense of irritation directed at himself. _How about this,_ it had said, _how about the vermin who worked for the Empire must have pulled a number on Iawko to make him what he is today. How about that, shitstain?_  And then it had promptly gone back to being dormant again.

Right.

He wouldn’t much have minded Iawko, if it hadn’t been for the way Khoshekh had put herself between him and Matt whenever the three of them were in the same space. It had soon become painfully apparent that she trusted him about as far as she could throw the Marauder without the aid of the Force.

This isn’t new. Hadn’t she made it abundantly clear to Matt when they’d first met that she’d much rather be off on her own? But it only had cemented what had already been floating around in the back of Matt’s mind in the span of the short time he’s known her; a working relationship doesn’t work at all if you walk around thinking the other one is going to stab you in the back. He’d learned that the hard way when he’d first joined the Knights of Ren. And it’s not as if consulting Anakin about it would make much of a difference, seeing as he is the sole reason Matt is in this situation in the first place. That conniving dead bastard.

It was Khoshekh who had suggested, however, that they should conceal themselves in the Force before hitting the dirt. This Rogue had struck her as a devious creature, as was only right after all, so Matt wasn’t about to argue with that. If they were going to keep out of sight, they probably shouldn’t broadcast their abilities to any potential Force wielder near by.

No amount of layers have been able save him from the penetrating sand clouds covering the city, now as they make their way through it, whipped up by a gusty wind blowing through the streets of Bestine. Every life form they pass is practically caked from head to toe, paws to eartips, or claws to beaks. Matt’s skin itches all over, including in some pretty inconvenient places. He’s seen at least two aliens on their trek from the Marauder who haven’t been particularly subtle in scratching their asses. Granted, said lifeforms may or may not have been on the sentient end of the scale, but kark if he doesn’t envy them their lack of personal shame right now. He’s willing to concede that there may actually have been a grain of truth to Anakin’s complaints. This is definitely not normal.

Even the bond is unusually bothersome today. It’s as quiet as ever, but for some reason keeps nagging on Matt’s nerves like a tiny, but constant scratch against his brainstem. Whatever it is Rey’s doing, the effect of it still reaches him despite the barriers she’s put up between them. Regardless, he can examine the bond closer later on. Right now he should stay alert of his own surroundings. The bond had been to much of a distraction the last time he encountered the Rogue. There’s nothing to say the knight won’t be waiting in the wings today, so best not take any chances. So, he’d tucked the bond away and left it as a tiny whisper in the back of his mind before he and Khoshekh had headed out.

They reach a dingy little place named The Shrieking Lothcat. Matt removes the goggles from his eyes as they enter. The glasses are covered in a fine layer of dust opaque enough to render him almost blind. A little river of sand runs from the folds of his scarf as he pulls it down.

Straightening up from bending through the little door Khoshekh shakes her whole body, unleashing a cloud of dust onto the entrance area of the small business. A couple of attendees sitting on a table nearby flick their antennas in disapproval and covers their drinks with clawed paws. The bartender glares at them with a face full of clustered eyes, before going back to serving his customers. In the corner a band of mismatching aliens plays the same gratingly upbeat tune on repeat. The place is dimly lit and reasonably crowded for a private conversation to go unnoticed.

It’s with dismay that Matt spies, not one, but two familiar faces in a secluded cubicle at the other side of the bar. What the hell is Nine thinking, bringing her into this? Shouldn’t he know better? Matt clenches his jaw, thinking for a moment he should turn around and leave, but if the doctor is here, then the damage must already have been done.

Maer is the one who sees him first. She stands, her arms stretching up in Matt’s direction. He braces, already feeling a medical examination coming his way. And sure enough, Maer grabs the hand he lifts to ward her off with, eying it with clinical expectation.

“Squeeze my hand,” she commands.

Oh light. She wants to do this here and now? What happened to doctor patient confidentiality? If he knows her at all Maer probably believes he owes her a detailed history of his health since leaving the Halcyon. He’s not going to weasel his way out of this is he? Better just get it over with. Matt wraps his fingers around Maer’s palm and squeezes.

“Grip’s still good,” she says shortly, and releases him to fish a bio scanner out of the bag hanging by her side. She quickly swipes it over Matt’s torso and head. “You look like you’ve been eating properly. Any headaches lately?”

“No,” Matt says, but Maer looks over his shoulder, a faint smile appearing on her face. He turns to find Khoshekh looking suspiciously inconspicuous, as if she’d just contradicted his statement in some way. She crosses her paws over her chest and meets his glare with her own.

This is why he’d rather work alone. He just can’t trust anyone.

“I see,” Maer says. She looks over the bio scanner’s readouts and snaps it shut. “I trust you’re still able to get the painkillers you need. Other than that you seem to be a little short on vitamin C. How’s the prosthetic working out for you? Have you experienced any twitching? Any instances of losing mobility so far?”

“It’s been working perfectly,” Matt tells her truthfully.

“Good,” Maer says, “I’m just going to do some calibrations. Hold still!” And she picks another device from her bag, a small datapad that she holds up to his arm. She jabs the screen a couple of times with her finger, and all of a sudden his right shoulder straightens up and squares itself on its own as if he’s been unconsciously slouching with it.

“Better?”

He rolls his shoulder experimentally and flexes his hand, noting that there is in fact a significant change to the motion. “Yeah,” he say, eying the arm with a slight frown.

Maer smiles a self satisfied smile. “Good! That’s what it was meant to do. Here, you can keep this.” She hands him the little datapad. “You should calibrate the prosthetic at least twice per month or else the coordination might get a bit wonky over time. I’m sure you can figure out how it works on your own. It’s pretty straightforward.” Maer slaps Matt’s forearm, grinning. “It’s good to see you!”

It’s not exactly a terrible thing, being met with a welcoming face, but first things first, she was never supposed to be there at all.

“I only expected you,” Matt tells Nine.

“Aw, did you hear that Nine?” Maer says, casting a glance over her shoulder. “He misses us. That’s sweet Matt. I’ll let the crew know you said so.”

What? No.

He opens his mouth, mind working hard to find the right word to make her forget that idea, but Maer is already taking the liberty of introducing Nine and herself to Khoshekh, translating the few words said in Shyriiwook to the confused looking loadmaster. Khoshekh shakes their hands cordially, with a bemused little glance in Matt’s direction.

“I haven’t had a Wookiee patent in years,” Maer says, then grimaces as if that might have been an odd thing to say.

But Khoshekh just puts her paw to her chest, shaking slightly with laughter. Well, she doesn’t plan on breaking that trend in the foreseeable future, that’s for sure.

Kriffing people. Matt watches in horror as an instantaneous friendship seems to form between the doctor and the Wookiee right in front of his very eyes. And somehow he’s the link that ties them together? Sure he might owe them his life, all of them, even Nine, but at what cost?

“She cornered both of us,” Nine explains to Matt when that’s finally done, “your, uh, colleague from before. We docked on Coruscant and Cap said we should take a day off. That’s when she found us. You know,” and here he lowers his voice to a whisper, “the Rogue.” Maer confirms this with a shrug.

“Did you bring what she gave you?” Matt asks.

“Well, yeah,” Nine replies, and then turns around. “Alright he’s here now,” he says addressing the table for some reason.

“You do know the furniture isn’t going to talk back, right?” Matt says.

“Well, look who’s grown a sense of humour,” Nine retorts.

“Come now boys,” Maer says. “Play nice.” She hunkers down by the edge of the table and quirks her head to look underneath it. “It’s alright. You can come out now.”

From under the table a sparse few notes of unusually morose binary sound. Khoshekh bends sideway in a curve, almost obscuring Matt’s view, as she coos inquisitively. The round form of a BB-9E unit with a flat topped head emerges halfway into the open, its color metallic and dulled. Its optics takes in Khoshekh, then Matt, before drawing back into the shadow of the table with a sullen tone.

“We had to scrub the paint off to make it less conspicuous,” Maer says. “It didn’t take it very well. Come on out. Let your new master look at you.”

Stubbornly, like a teenager dragged from their room, the droid comes rolling out, its head bowed as if its current state is an embarrassment as well as an affront. It stays clear of Khoshekh.

Perplexed, Matt frowns down at the thing. Is that it? This is what the Rogue thought would help him? The droid lets out a long, complaining tune and draws back under the table again, as if in shame.

“It’s been like that ever since we disembarked,” Nine says, sitting down. Maer takes her seat too.

“Any idea why she would send it?” she asks Matt.

“No,” Matt says. Who knows what it is the Rogue even expects from him? She might have picked his memories from his brain, but he doesn’t really know exactly how much she saw.

Well then. Better get back to the privacy of the Marauder and find out. He clears his throat to bid them adieu, and maybe give some satisfactory statement of appreciation for their aid, but is cut short as a mountain of muscle and fur bodily shoves him sideways into the cubicle. Matt hastily straightens up, biting back some well chosen words he would very much like to direct towards the Wookiee. Khoshekh settles down besides him, blocking his exit and directs her attention to Maer and Nine, asking for more information on the Rogue.

Nine’s eyes narrows into slits, his brow drawn down into a uncomprehending frown as Khoshekh speaks. It is Maer that answers.

“She didn’t say much,” she tells them. “She cornered us where there weren't many people around, told us to find you and then ordered the droid to follow us. Then she disappeared. It happened really fast.”

“Nasty little bugger,” Nine says, referring to the droid. “Though I gotta hand it to it, it’s very keen on world domination.”

“Zapf had to tweak its personality. You should have heard it scream bloody murder about being kidnapped by Rebel Scum,” Maer adds, and whistles through pursed lips. “That was a fun trip back to the Halcyon.”

Something hard knocks against Matt’s knee and stays there. He looks under the table to find the droid leaning its head apathetically against his leg. It lets out a dull, long tone. Well…. At least it’s not screaming.

Khoshekh doesn’t seem pleased with the lack of answers. For once Matt is in agreement. They don’t know what they’re walking into here, and just because Aunelia Ren had quite possibly been a duplicitous traitor during Matt’s time as a Knight doesn’t mean whatever schemes she’s concocting are going to pan out in his favour now. As it is, she might as well be thinking of him as a piece she can nudge around on a gameboard, easily sacrificed to gain the high ground in whatever it is she’s trying to achieve.

“How well do you know this Rogue, Matt?” Maer asks. Her fingers turn the glass of Bestinian beer she’d been nursing when Matt and Khoshekh had first walked in. Its content hasn’t diminished much.

“Not that well,” Matt admits to her. Not well indeed. Apparently not at all.

“But you two were cooperating?” Maer presses, her brow lowering somewhat.

Khoshekh turns her eyes out of the cubicle, casually scanning the room. Of course she knows most of what Matt could tell her about the Rogue, but she doesn’t betray a thing.

“Well...” Matt clears his throat, buying time. “She’s a Knight of Ren after all.” And he was just a lowly Radar Technician, not worth the dirt under the shoes of one of the Supreme Leader’s most prized warriors. He lets the implications hang in the air, leaving Nine and Maer to draw that conclusion on their own.

“I don’t like this,” Maer says. The stare she gives Matt is troubled. “If you don’t know her, how do you know she’s trustworthy?”

But it is Nine who comes to Matt’s rescue. “She did let us go didn’t she?”

“Yes, but to what end?” Maer replies. “Haven’t you been paying attention to the news?”

Ah, the news. This had been Khoshekh’s first inquiry once Matt had laid the subject of the Rogue on the table. As far as traitors go, Aunelia Ren’s appearance on the battleground is nothing on which to base any assumption of her disloyalty towards the First Orders’s cause. Checking the broadcasts for once, Matt had come to the conclusion that she had somehow grown more brutish since his own departure from the organization.

There's no ignoring how she has a tendency guard the back of that impostor Kylo Ren at all times. But what really sets Matt’s teeth on edge is her role in leading the attacks on certain planets rich in resources, leading to her image being one of the more prominent faces, or rather, masks of the First Order in the galactic news media.

It seems that in Matt’s absence she’s really started to live up to her name. Aunelia. Spearhead. Perfect.

Just perfect.

“What do you think we did in the First Order?” Nine asks Maer. She twists uneasily in her seat. Something unsaid seems to pass between the two of them. Matt has the sudden impulse to look away, as if he’s witnessing something that’s far more private than what it might initially seem on the surface, thought he can’t put his finger on what it might be.

“But the Knights of Ren aren’t stormtroopers.” Maer insists. “They gotta have some power don’t they?”

“Well, you’re the one who told me about Galen Erso.” Nine brushes his hair back over his head. “He didn’t have much say and he was really high up too.”

In a last resort Maer turns towards Matt as if expecting him to help her out here. Matt says nothing. For once, miraculously, he’s in agreement with Nine. In fact, he’s never heard the former stormtrooper make this much sense before.

Finding no help in him, Maer folds after a moment’s pause. She sighs.

“Just be careful,” she says. “That prosthetic is one of my best creations you’re walking around with.”

Matt nods, throat clicking as he swallows. “I’ll do my best ma’am.”

Under the table the BB unit wails.

* * *

What does he think the droid is for? This is one of the queries Khoshekh throws in Matt’s direction as they make their way back to the Marauder. The unit in question rolls along at his opposite side, its head lowered to the ground, seeming to always want to keep Matt right in the middle of itself and the huge Wookiee. Khoshekh hasn’t made any attempts to get her paws on it, just patiently ignoring its threatening chirps every time she gets too close, like someone biding her time.

They’re winding their way through an open marketplace. The earlier wind has abated enough to leave their scarfs down, but the cloud of settling dust over the city is not enough cover for the unforgiving suns making their way across the sky, so Matt has kept his goggles on. He rubs his temple as the beginning of something that may become a migraine if he doesn’t do something about it soon pinches the inside of his skull. They pass a stall selling various colourful spices, piled in tall, haphazardous, conical towers. The invasive mix of strong smells fills his nostrils, somehow building an uncomfortable pressure in his brain.

“Kriff if I know,” Matt tells Khoshekh.

The irony of the BB unit being practically dropped in his lap feels like a mockery. A joke on his own expense for his failure in retrieving a droid of the very same kind all those months ago. He scowls down at the thing as if half expecting it'll somehow produce Luke Skywalker himself from thin air. Matt might have thought many things of Aunelia Ren back in the day, but her having a sardonic sense of humour was not one of them.

Khoshekh considers the droid as well, murmuring. Maybe the Rogue gave it to him for companionship?

“Why the hell would she do that?” Matt retorts. He might be rusty on Wookiee expressions, but that looks a lot like an overbearing grimace on Khoshekh’s face as she turns away from him. Her low rumbling sounds a lot like something about insufferable pups needing their pacifiers.

“What was that?” he demands, stopping in his tracks.

Khoshekh halts too. The alien owner of the nearest stall selling some colourful spiky things that could possibly be vegetables stiffens, seemingly preparing for what might look like a brawl in the making.

Folding her paws in front of herself, Khoshekh faces Matt, reminding him once more with her sheer size and confidence that he’s no match for her in his current state. She fixes him with stern eyes, and demands to know why he lied to the doctor back there about his headaches.

“That’s none of your business.” What the kriff does she want from him? First she takes his ship, and now she want’s his personal information too?

Khoshekh pokes him in the chest with a hairy finger. If they’re going to work together, it is her business, she growls. His poor health is detrimental to the mission. Just how is she suppose to trust him to do his job if she can’t trust that he’s making sure he’s able to do it?

Oh, he knows what this is about. Anakin put her up to this didn’t he? It’s one thing to have the ghost constantly harping about Matt taking care of himself. He’s used to that. But now he’s gotta put up with the same treatment from the Wookiee?

“As I said, that’s none of yours,” Matt sneers, and starts walking again, only to get held back and turned around by one of her huge paws on his shoulder. Somewhere around the area of their legs the BB unit utters a series of distressed clicks. Matt’s sight turns a shade red and he slaps the paw away. “Fucking unhand me!”

Khoshekh leans over him, her dreads almost dangling in his face. With the air of someone about to begin a lecture about morals she puts the same finger she poked him in the chest with in his face, and -

\- gets distracted.

She looks back the way they came from, her eyes narrowing, finger still pointed between Matt’s eyes, and her nose wrinkling as she sniffs the air.

“What?” Matt says, not even sure is he’s asking what she’s sensing or if he’s trying to get her attention back to their argument. Khoshekh straightens up, her head now fully turned towards the other end of the marketplace.

“What?” Matt repeats, this time painfully aware of how much stronger her Force senses currently are compared to his own. But all it takes is a shift outwards for his own attention to catch what she has detected.

He freezes, a hard knot of barely contained adrenaline forming in his chest. The pungent smell of alien spice fills his sinuses again as if he’s walking past that earlier stall for a second time, even though it’s somewhere far behind them by now.

No, it can’t be.

But the signature, or _signatures_ are unmistakable.

Like in a terrible, terrible dream, no, the worst nightmare imaginable, he turns his gaze to follow Khoshekh’s line of sight. There, way across the marketplace, following the same route the two of them have just taken. Far enough away that Matt wouldn’t have been able to recognize him from this distance if he hadn’t spent years of his life following the man, is Luke Skywalker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s another cliffhanger! What will happen next? How dead is everyone’s favorite trash boy going to be in the next chapter?
> 
> Just so everyone’s aware, I’m not sure when the next chapter will be out. I’m contemplating waiting until after TLJ, because I’m very interested in knowing how Ben’s turn to the darkside could possibly feature into this story. But then again, the next chapter might not even change that much with the new information. We’ll see.


	16. Master and Apprentice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there’s shaddows from the past to be dealt with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for another long absence! I just really needed to make sure what I had planned for this chapter and the next corresponded with the new information about Ben and Rey from TLJ. All in all, there’s not much that needs to be changed, so huge kudos to all the meta writers in this fandom. I’ve based a lot of my characterizations on what they’ve written so thanks a lot! CAN YOU GUYS BELIEVE THE FORCE BOND IS CANON CAUSE I CAN’T
> 
> By the way I put up a final chapter tally just to give you guys an idea of just how long this story is going to be, but it’s definitely subject to change.
> 
> Picking up where we left off Matt and Khoshekh had just met with Maer and Nine. A BB-9E droid has been added to the Marauder’s crew, and none other than Luke Skywalker shows up at the end. Who else is with him? Read and find out!

Luke was a constant presence in his early childhood. Matt has many memories of a young man with a quirky grin occasionally interrupted by a more serious demeanor. Things must have been good at that point in time, because the memories aren’t tainted with intrinsic loathing. Luke had always been there, until the days came when he no longer was. As Ben had grown older the periods between his uncle’s visits had grown longer and his stays shorter. By the time he’d been sent away to train with Luke, he hadn’t seen his uncle for a solid three whole years. In that time this wayfaring relative had, in Ben’s mind, gone from being the uncle whose arrivals were a distraction from everyday life to being the fabled Jedi who’d defeated Palpatine and brought Darth Vader back to the light. Didn’t matter that Ben was of the same blood as him, the legends everyone around Ben tended to spin had a way of getting to a young boy of the tender age of only twelve. Luke had become mythical.

But this had been the early days. Looking up to Luke because he’d been told he was a hero was one thing, actually living and traveling with the man was a whole nother story.

If people ever wondered about where a Jedi apprentice such as Ben Organa-Solo gained his culinary skills — and they rarely did because traveling the galaxy with your hermit uncle didn’t exactly make for ample opportunity to invite dinner guests over — they would have learned that it had been born out of necessity. Necessity, because Luke Skywalker, Jedi extraordinaire and saviour of the galaxy, could not cook his own way out of a field ration pack.

That first evening meal is still seared into his mind. A single spoon of that gruel Luke had proudly placed in front of him had been the first of many rude awakenings. The stew had tasted like a Bantha’s backside, and it only went downhill from there.

This, somehow, is what first comes to mind as he stands in a sort of trance watching Luke’s approach. The god awful food, and not the betrayal or the lies. But the betrayal and the lies follow soon enough nonetheless. Suddenly he’s no longer frozen to the ground in shock. Something behind his eyes has grown hot, rendering a red veil over his vision, and it carries him forward as if he has no will of his own. This day has been a long time coming, and now that he finally has Luke within reach —

A big hairy paw at the front of his jacket halts his progress. There’s a split second when the primitive part of his brain tells him to shove Khoshekh away and go for Skywalker’s throat next, but then he catches sight of a mane of chestnut brown just past his uncle’s shoulder.

Her eyes are lowered against the harsh sun. She’s got half of her hair tied back while the rest of it hangs loosely around her shoulders. Her face is free of the anger that had been there when last he talked to her. Some treacherous voice in the back of his mind says the bond hardly does the reality of her any justice. In person Rey is as luminous as a star, just as he remembers her. Her presence sings through the Force and he can’t see how he didn’t notice her there before now. But he’s been pushing the unruly bond between them to the back of his mind all day, ignoring it even as it’s been prodding at him the worst. All the rest of the crowded marketplace disappears as his vision narrows down to the scavenger girl following in his uncle's footsteps, her hair shining in the sunlight, and her freckles softening her tanned face. With a slender hand Rey tucks a rogue curl behind her ear, and it finally dawns on Matt that he’s well and truly fucked.

He’s also about to be discovered.

As his brain wakes to the reality of the situation it becomes apparent to him that while Luke and Rey are walking in his general direction, they’re not actually walking towards him. However, not only does Matt himself tend to stand out like a sore thumb in most crowds, but he’s also standing right next to a Wookiee as tall as a kriffing lamp post. All thoughts of confronting Luke evaporate as his brain reminds him he has nothing to bring into a battle except a blaster and headaches. In a fit of desperation Matt drops to the ground.

The BB-9E unit beeps frantically, rolling around Matt as he shuffles about to press his back against the wooden panel of the closest fruit stand. Khoshekh regards Matt with a curious sort of confusion. It’s a good thing they decided to shield their Force abilities before going out to meet Nine and Maer, even if Matt’s strength isn’t exactly at peak. Ironically enough, if there’s one thing Luke taught him to do well it was to hide himself in the Force. Matt wraps his own signature in a layer of concealment as thick as he can manage with the looming headache prodding at his temples. It’ll have to do or else he’s dead.

But it’s not nearly enough. “Fuck off,” he snaps at Khoshekh, still standing over him like one giant, flashing question mark. “Get lost mothball, you’re drawing too much attention.” The Wookiee and droid look from him and back at their followers in unison, a comical sight if it hadn’t been for the prospect of being impaled by a lightsaber at any second.

Matt pulls his scarf up under his goggles to cover his mouth and nose with hands that shake to much for comfort. The edge of some kind of sturdy fabric sticks out from around the corner of the fruit stand. He grabs it — an old and worn cape with a hood — and wraps it over himself like a shroud. The owner of the stand seems to realize she’s being stolen from and leans around the corner of the fruit stand, letting out a loud honk of protest. He jabs a finger in the alien’s face. “I’m not here,” he commands, putting compulsion into his words. The alien wavers for an uncertain second, her mouth open but no sound coming out — _work damnit, work!_ — then a dazed expression passes over her face, and she goes back to minding her fruit. Any danger of renewed shouting getting him caught is averted. He’s just another poor wretch resting his feet for a moment.

Matt pulls the hood up over his hair, and looks up — to find that Khoshekh and the droid has vanished into thin air. Only heads at average heights are sticking up around him, no mountain of ghostly grey fur in sight. Back when he first met her she’d kept herself well hidden in the Force, but how the hell does a four hundred pound Wookiee disappear into a crowd of normal sized life forms?

He did tell her to fuck off though…

A cold stone of realization drops in his stomach. Khoshekh has the droid, and she might be well on her way towards the Marauder already. She has the droid, and she’ll most definitely will be taking off without him given the chance. But wasn’t this what he expected? Their alliance hasn’t exactly been a solid one, and it was only a matter of time before she figured keeping him around wasn’t worth it. He’s considering his options of getting up and walking away under his makeshift disguise, when an all too familiar voice coming from right behind him has him frozen in place like he’s been bolted to the ground where he sits.

Matt lowers his head, goggles trained on the dirt between his shoes, his heart pounding, as two figures pass to his left, so close he could have reached out and brush against the nearest of them had he wanted. His hand finds the blaster at his hip. It’s not going to be any good against Luke or Rey, but if he’s lucky it will give him a head start.

If he’s lucky.

His hand shakes uncontrollably, however. If push comes to shove he doesn’t think he could shoot true. It’s in this moment his resolve wavers. He’s going to be found. He remembers the green light of Luke’s sabre looming over him, and knows this will be the end if he’s discovered. There’s nowhere left to run, and he’s all alone without the means to defend himself, and his uncle is right kriffing there in front of him. Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

His grip on his blaster has tightened to the point of pain.

But he’s not alone. The Force ripples in the way that Matt has come to recognize as the arrival of his grandfather’s ghost. In an instant Anakin is there, quiet as the ghost that he is, and his presence settles on Matt along with a sense of something woven into the air like an invisible veil. For a moment Matt still fears the worst. He and Anakin don’t exactly see eye to eye when it comes to family after all, but the ghost’s signature is silent, somehow motioning him too to do the same. Be quiet, it says, don’t be seen.

Anakin must have learned from underestimating Khoshekh because Rey and Luke continue on, not sparing a glance in their direction, or seeming to notice that he and Anakin are even there. Yet a couple of shops away Luke stops abruptly. Matt shrinks down, willing himself to disappear into the ground.

“I believe our dear Miss R was right,” he can hear Luke say, his voice a little obscured by distance and the constant murmur of the surrounding crowd. “We’re searching for a ghost.”

“Seemed very much flesh and blood according to Phi.” The sound of Rey’s voice, unfiltered through a Force bond, sounds exactly the same yet not the same at all. Her accent is as pleasant to his ears as a slap to the face would sting.  
  
Miss R?

Phi?

Paranoia creeps in. Who are these people and how the hell did they know where Luke Skywalker could find him? Something seems off about this thought. Matt tips his head up just a fraction from where he’s been staring at the ground, enough that he can take in the shape of Rey and his uncle only a few meters away, their forms half obscured by a shop heaped with baking goods.

“Are we sure we’re looking for the same person?” Rey asks. A metal staff attached to a leather cord is slung across her chest and shoulder. There’s traces of a clean break in the middle where it’s been welded back together. At her hip, a familiar silver cylinder hangs. Anakin’s old lightsabre. Matt’s hand twitch around the butt of his blaster, fingers suddenly itching. At his side Anakin’s signature flares with a warning.

Luke turns to Rey. His hair and beard is mostly gray now, and it’s with a shock Matt registers the tiredness of his eyes. How old he’s become.

“Are we sure?” Luke says. “No. We’re following a hunch and mere hope. But I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if we had more than one benefactor.”

Benefactor? It can’t possibly be a coincidence that they just so happen to be on Tatooine at the exact same time as Matt is, unless they’ve somehow gotten hints of his whereabouts, and yet it seems that the identity of who they’re looking for is unknown. If they were looking for Kylo Ren slash Ben Solo couldn’t Rey have just tracked him through the bond?

“Have you sensed anything, Rey?” Luke uses his teaching voice, the same one he’d used on Matt at a younger age. He knows it so well Luke might as well have been asking him what he’s sensing.

“I think I did,” Rey answers. “But it was very brief, faint. I think it was a slip.”

“Tell me.”

“There were... two,” she starts. “A human and… a Wookiee?”

“Good, good,” Luke says. “Anything else?”

Matt is a krugga deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming speeder. The bond is once again nagging at the back of his mind, and if Rey just reaches a little deeper through their connection she certainly will know exactly who she just sensed and where he’s sitting, Anakin’s protection be damned. But her interaction with the bond is dismissive, as if it’s a distraction to her concentration, and something tells Matt, a threat. As he sits with his heart in his throat, she smothers her end of it, ties it up tight like she would the strings of a leather pouch and pushes it down.

Matt hardly dares to breathe. She can feel it too but doesn’t realize what it means. Then again neither did he, although he should know better. In their effort to ignore the bond they almost ran the risk of running straight into each other. He supposes he could call himself lucky at this moment.

“The Wookiee is strong in the Force,” Rey tells Luke, “but the human is weak.”

Weak? Matt straightens fractionally, his chest puffing up despite himself. Who’s she calling weak?

“But they both appear quite sufficient in hiding themselves,” Luke says. “Weak, but skilled.”

Insignificant scavenger with her stupid symmetrical face and perfect button nose. Matt bites his teeth together in chagrin. He’s _not_ weak….

“And I suspect,” his uncle continues, “they knew we were coming.”

Once he brought down a freighter with his mind. His _mind_. That’s not weak. Not weak at all! Kriff that scavenger girl. She means nothing to him.

“Strange…” Luke’s eyes sweeps over the marketplace. Matt shakes himself out of his reverie, sensing something definitely not good coming his way. “For a moment there it was as if….” Oh fuck, here it comes. Luke’s going to say his name and that will be it. Rey will know and she’ll find him through the bond.

“What is?” she asks.

Luke makes a wondering sound. “Nothing,” he says, and to Matt’s ears there’s something awfully melancholy about it that picks at certain parts of his insides he’d rather not acknowledge. “Just wistful thinking from an old fool. I was reminded of Han. It must be this kriffing planet. I first met him not that far from here you know.” He gestures with his gloved hand, the one that’s just machinery and wires underneath.

Matt’s face feels flat. The muscles underneath numb. Han? Anger is, of course, not unfamiliar to him, but this cold fire suddenly burning in his gut is something new. His knuckles are clenched so tight they might never unclench again. His shoulders are tense, and the sunlight has started to hurt his eyes through the goggles. A needle of pain signals the beginning of a headache. The safety on the blaster clicks off without the touch of his thumb. If Luke misses Han so much shouldn’t he have been there? Shouldn’t he have not….

In the heat of Matt’s racing thoughts, Anakin does something he’s only done once before. A light press to Matt’s temple and the rage ebbs away, leaving him with a sudden numbness. Something inside still wants to rise up again, but it’s as if Anakin has a finger on him, keeping it down where it can’t do any harm. A few seconds of this and Matt realizes that he’s also being physically held down. The effort it takes to relax enough to not look as if he’s struggling against some invisible force has him sweating.

Luke lets out a low humph, shaking his head. “You had enough of it yet, Rey? Following an old man around the galaxy on a wild goose hunt? Aren’t you sick of all the meditating?”

“It’s not all bad.” There’s a clever tilt to the corner to her lips. Rey’s eyes quirk. Her face has never done that around Matt before. “Sometimes I levitate rocks too.”

Luke throws his head back. “Ha! I see my first lesson didn’t stick.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Master Luke.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Luke replies. “Trying to shake you is like repeatedly knocking my head against rocks.”

She makes an amused sound, looks at him with something like affection and places a hand on Luke’s shoulder as she walks past him. “Come along old fool. I think I saw something tall and hairy go this way.”

Their shadows disappear from Matt’s line of sight and their footsteps become faint, swallowed up by the crowd around them. Matt counts the seconds, aware that they might very well decide to turn back. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen….

In the end he allows his limbs to move, unfurls his long leg from under himself and rises quietly. They’re far ahead — enough for Matt to safely disappear down a different route — and moving further away by the second. If he goes now he might reach the Marauder in time, but he’s just as likely not to. Matt looks between their retreating backs and the path back to his ship, which is most likely lost to him. He stands there with his hands clenched, indecisive for so long he eventually loses sight of them. Anakin is a tense presence in the Force, but no longer holding him down.

He’s being pulled in two directions at the same time. His head and feet are ready to run, to get as far away as physically possible from these people, as he had always intended. But the Force is tugging at a string in his chest. Why are they here? Who are they following? And how the hell did their path cross with his this way? These are the things Matt tells himself he needs answers to, but in the back of his mind he knows there’s a reason he and Skywalker bumped into each other. And if there’s a pretty Jedi apprentice following his uncle around who just happens to share a Force bond with himself? Well….

At the edge of the marketplace, there’s one last flash of Rey’s hair before she disappears from view for good. He squares his shoulders and follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to make my christmas please leave a comment! :)


	17. Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Matt overhears a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve made some slight changes to earlier chapters when it comes to our boy’s feelings concerning his uncle. When I wrote them I never took into consideration that Ben Solo might have more reasons to hate Luke Skywalker other than having been manipulated into it, so I went back and rewrote certain parts. They’re very minor changes so please don’t feel as if you need to go back and reread. I just thought I would let you guys know for the sake of continuity.
> 
> A very big thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments, especially to the people who comments on every chapter! I could never have gotten this far with this story without you guys. :)
> 
> And as alway big thanks to my beta readers, Tehanufromearthsea and Applesith for your constant encouragement!

 

"Enjoying the show?" It’s more of an accusation than an actual question. Whatever Anakin previously did to Matt’s emotions, it must have been a momentary thing because his anger is running high again. "I’m surprised you turned up this time around."

"If you think I didn’t put a bell on you a long time ago, you thought wrong,’ Anakin says.

"And you didn’t see them coming?" Matt pushes through a throng of people that has gathered around a little shop, not making much of an effort to be polite.

"I’m a ghost, not omniscient," Anakin replies. "And I’m here to keep you from making a mess out of things."

Matt’s hands are balled into fists. His jaw hurts from being clenched too hard. This is not an argument he wants to have right now.

"Khoshekh took the droid," he says, forgetting for a moment that he hasn’t told Anakin about the BB unit yet. But the ghost doesn’t miss a beat.

"I don’t think you need to worry about her."

Matt scoffs. Yeah, don’t worry about the kriffing Wookiee who’s taken over his ship, and all of a sudden just disappeared right from under his nose.

The bustling marketplace ends in an equally bustling street. Here the buildings rise higher than the regular brick and clay houses on Tatooine. Up ahead, between the gaps in the crowd Matt glimpses the shapes that are Rey and Luke. He lengthens his strides.

"You don’t by any chance know why they’re here, do you?" he asks Anakin.

"I take it you’re not going to ask them yourself."

"Do you know or don’t you?"

"If you want my guess I’d say they’re searching for the person who sent them information on the First Order."

Kriffing hell. Some quick reasoning is enough to determine that Rey and Luke must have found the Halcyon somehow and tracked it to Tatooine, and from there followed Nine and Dr. Maer to their meeting place. Had they been in the cantina? Probably not. Otherwise all hell would have broken loose the minute Matt had taken off his goggles and scarf. They must have kept their distance for a while, trying to get some sense of who they were dealing with. And once they got close….

Matt pulls the neck of his jacket up, and fastens his scarf more securely under his goggles. There’s too many things that could have gone wrong in this scenario. Too much that’s been left to chance. If there’s something he remembers about Luke it’s that he has this eerie talent of tracing people from afar, a skill he himself had great difficulty copying for the longest time. But he did learn eventually, and he’s using that very skill right now.

Matt doesn’t care to think about what would have happened had something been just a little bit different. If this kriffing planet hadn’t been blowing up a small sandstorm when they arrived. If he’d left his face uncovered. Matt suppresses a shiver. He’s been too distracted.

Gaining ground fast, he follows the two figures at a steady pace. The tip of Rey’s staff bobs above the heads in the street. Between the shapes of all the various lifeforms, Matt catches glimpses of a brown sheaf of hair growing down to her shoulder blades. Was it always that long? She had it down the last time he saw her through the bond, but everything about that seems unreal now. As if seeing her in person has revealed it to be an imperfect facsimile of the real thing.

Rey walks by Luke’s side, allowing him to move ahead if the passage between the people in the street becomes too narrow. The last time Matt saw Luke his hair had still been dark, with only a few pale strands that betrayed his age. The gray has overtaken it now, but it’s also longer, unkempt. It’s as if something wild has taken root in Luke, overtaken his usually serene appearance like vegetation would an abandoned building.

Matt has kept his hand on his blaster ever since he started walking. His grip on it twitches every time his uncle’s back comes into view. He licks his lips. All he needs is an opening in the crowd and a clear shot while Luke is distracted. Could he do it?

_You need answers first._

The thought is shockingly demanding. Matt has spent a lot of years telling himself he’s done seeking answers from his family. He’d much rather chew his own arm off, if it came to it. Yet, lately there’s been this nagging thing in the back of his brain, fighting to come to the forefront. The unsettling feeling of not knowing his own mind. That what memories he has of his childhood are incomplete, or even wrong.

Anakin’s signature has been pulled taut with tension ever since he showed up, but now Matt becomes aware of an unease in the mix. He loosens his grip on his blaster as if stung. This is a conflict of interest he’s not ready to deal with. It’s too easy to forget that the man who tried to kill him all those years ago is also Anakin’s son.

The crowd parts. For just one moment Matt has a clear view of the back of his uncle’s head. It’s perfect, like a true test of his resolve. But the moment vanishes as soon as it had appeared, and Matt’s hand still hasn’t drawn his weapon. Rey slows down to pull behind Luke as they walk through a thickening of the crowd, her neck lining up with his, right were Matt would have put his blaster bolt.

Rey…. The girl who grew up where no one should have and took her place among the stars. Is he really going to hurt or kill every person she’s become attached to? Even if one of them is someone who tried to kill him? Not that Matt would trust Luke with anyone, but he decides that this is not the time or place for vengeance.

A gnarly old twi’lek towing a big, flat snouted pack beast lumbers into his path. Matt positions himself on the other side to allow for some cover should Luke and Rey decide to turn around.

"...complicates things." Luke’s voice barely carries over the noise of the street. "But…. makes sense considering…. we know." Whatever he says next gets swallowed up by the shouting of a store owner to their right. Matt bites the inside of his cheek as he sidesteps an alien covered from head to toe in gray rags wandering directly into his path. How is he suppose to spy on them if he can’t hear what they’re saying?

For a while, wandering along the street is all Luke and Rey do, yet they seem to have some direction in mind. A couple of times Matt has to duck into a side alley or behind a crate as one or both of them turn their heads. The third time Matt emerges from his hiding spot they’re out of view again, but if Anakin hadn’t been able to point him in the right direction their signatures would have. Their trail goes into a back alley and ends in a large opening between the buildings.

It’s a garden, or a garden by Tatooine standards at least. The place is mostly cobblestone, but planted between the trails in artful shapes are a variety of flowers and bushes from other parts of the galaxy. Visitors wander between the flowerbeds here and there, but they are few and far between.

Rey and Luke have stopped their wandering under one of the morosely hanging branches of one of the larger trees not far from the mouth of the alley. Matt presses his back to the wall and inches around the corner to catch glimpse of the two. A bush half a foot taller than himself blocks his view, but there’s enough space between the big leaves to get some sense of what’s going on.

Luke stands entirely still. His back is turned, but Matt recognizes the sight of his uncle meditating. Rey has assumed the same position, but as he watches she opens one of her eyes and steals a glance at Luke. Matt knows that look. It’s the one he used to give his uncle himself when his concentration had run out and he was just waiting for the old man to finish searching for whatever it was he was looking for in the Force.

A minute goes by in which nothing happens. Then with a huff Luke ends his meditation. "This is futile," he says, his tone carrying a hint of frustration. The old Luke would never have let such a thing enter his voice. Turning around, he marches over to a rusty bench wrought in dark iron and sits down with his back towards Matt. "Had I known we were following Force sensitives my approach would have been very different."

Matt cocks his head, listening over the sound of his own breathing and the bustling of the city behind him.

"Maybe sneaking up on them wasn’t such a good idea," Rey says.

"Sometimes sneaking up on someone is all we have," Luke replies.

Matt has to keep himself from scoffing as not to make a sound. He knows this all too well.

With another sigh Luke lifts his gaze up to the hanging branches above them, shaking his head slowly. "A man spends years of his life leaking information to the enemy of the organization he works for, but when he’s finally out he decides to hide from both."

Matt inches a little further out of his hiding spot, ears pointed. Who leaked what now?

"We can’t blame him for being paranoid after having lived a double life," Rey says.

Luke nods. "I suppose you’re right. It must be a brave thing to suddenly be on the outside, to make a new life when all you know is hiding in the shadows. I still wish we knew more about this radar technician and his friend."

Anakin’s signature sparks. "I’ll be damned," he says. Behind his goggles Matt draws his eyebrows down in a frown. The radar technician? As in the person whose identity he’s taken? The idea that the same guy who kept half eaten muffins in his pockets also spent his time in the First Order leaking information to the Resistance seems unlikely. Yet the Rogue had indicated the technician had been searching for something, but when Matt had gone through his stuff he’d found exactly squat except for that embarrassing journal.

Regardless, here Rey and Luke are, following Matt’s trail instead of the Real Matt. Just how they made the connection is beyond him, but if he were to guess it must have been, as Anakin said, through the information he sent Adilet and her crew. The Captain never struck Matt as someone who was not as good as her word, however. She knew he wanted anonymity.

But there are other forces at play here. For one thing, he doesn’t have a single clue who these other people Rey and Luke mentioned are. Whoever they turn out to be, they know enough about him for the Resistance to be able to put two and two together. And while the answer in reality adds up to five instead of four, the result is still the same; Matt almost got himself caught.

Rey turns this way and that, as if she’d be able to detect something in the Force if only she was facing the right way. Matt draws behind cover as she momentarily looks in the direction of his hiding spot.

"It seems very odd though, don’t you think?" he hears her say. "You’d think he would have been picked up and trained for something more, not just been working in maintenance."

"Odd?" Luke turns to her. "Yes. But I’ve seen stranger things. To Snoke, what matters is power." He pauses for a bit, his gaze unfocused, as if his mind has drawn him someplace far away. "I doubt he’d even bother if he ever sensed this individual at all." Luke punctuates his words with yet another heavy sigh.

At last Rey seems to give up on the search as well. She walks over and sits down on the bench along with Luke. Pulling her staff around her front to lean against her shoulder, she lets one end rest against the cobblestones between her feet. "If we can’t find him, then what?"

Luke works his jaw as if chewing on his words. "We keep going," he says matter of factly.

Rey turns her head away from him, her full profile becoming visible to Matt. Frowning in the glare of the sun she mouths the word _fuck_.

What did Real Matt have that is so important to them?

Matt almost misses the strange glance Luke gives Rey behind her back. It’s not exactly easy to decipher his frown from this angle, but Matt can sense rather than see that there’s something troubled behind it.

"You’re a good kid, Rey," Luke says out of nowhere. "I can only hope I can do good by you."

Rey turns to him, her hair falling from where it’s been hanging over her shoulder and down her back. Not for the first time Matt wishes he could be privy to whatever emotions are crossing her face. "You already have," she tells Luke.

There’s a ripple in Anakin’s signature. Matt doesn’t need the ghost to tell him what it is he has detected, because the amount of sincerity behind Rey’s words is as apparent to him as if they were his own.

She’s _lying_.

Luke’s mouth draws out in a somewhat strained smile. "You are too kind, Rey," he eventually replies, "but I believe we both know that’s not the truth."

While Rey’s face isn’t visible, there’s no mistaking the sudden tension in her posture. The stiffness of her shoulders echoes in Matt’s own.

"You are troubled," Luke goes on. "If there’s one thing the Force doesn’t teach you it’s to know when someone is carrying their smiles like a mask, and I’ve seen a lot of masks in my time, sometimes far too late. I know you tell yourself you’re fine, Rey. You are obviously not and you haven’t been for as long as I have known you."

Rey is as still as a statue, her knuckles white around her staff. "I don’t understand what you mean."

Lying again.

"Don’t give me that crap," Luke retorts. While his words are harsh, he just sounds tired. "You’ve spent your entire life alone waiting for a family that never gave a damn about you. I don’t know what drives a person to stay in indentured servitude when they have all the skill to get themselves out of it, but I know what self imprisonment looks like."

Rey’s grip on her staff is so tight it looks as if she’s about to break it anew. She’s on her feet as quick as a Loth-cat, her posture so defensive she might as well be preparing herself for a fight. Instead she stops and faces Luke from the other end of the cobbled path, her burning eyes for once directed at someone other than Matt himself. Her sudden vulnerability has him split between the urge to place himself as a shield between her and Luke, and feeling as if he’s witnessing something not for his eyes.

"My family gives a damn about me," Rey insists.

"Do they?" Luke says. "Then why did they leave you with a scrap dealer who used you for cheap labour? If you really believed they were going to come back for you then why are you here?"

Rey opens her mouth but no words come out. Even as she seems to gather herself, to Matt she still has the appearance of an animal backed into a corner. This time he almost does leave his cover to put himself between them. Anakin pulls at his mind, however, silently indicating that just maybe they should get the hell out of this place.

Matt doesn’t move an inch. Rey had carried the same look in her eyes the last time the two of them had been caught up in one of their verbal fights. He’d deliberately turned the argument away from that of his mother to the hungry boy in Rey’s nightmares just to get a rise out of her. He had gotten exactly that and then some. She’d been frightened.

Matt doesn’t know what the connection there is, but something clicks. There’s a lot more to this than even his uncle realizes.

Luke gets to his feet. "Forgive me," he says as he approaches Rey. "Recent years has made me less of a people person. I have upset you. I’m sorry."

Rey straightens. "No, it’s fine," she replies, almost mechanically. She pulls weakly at the corners of her lips, but even from his cover Matt can tell it’s shaky.

"Rey." Luke’s voice is calm again, conciliatory. He puts a hand on her shoulder, and with a lowering of his head encourages her to look at him. "When you arrived on Ahch-To I had vowed to never take another student under my wing again, and yet here we are." He spreads his free hand out, and shrugs. "Because you are as stubborn as they come, and as kind. But you’re carrying around a gaping wound and I am at a loss for how to help you."

Rey pulls the leather cord attached to her staff over her shoulder and swings it onto her back. Hurriedly she wipes a hand across her cheek. "I’m not like him," she says so quietly Matt almost doesn’t hear it.

He pulls himself back around the corner of his hiding place, putting his back against the wall once more. It’s as if her words has somehow exposed him even when she hasn’t exactly mentioned his name. It’s him she’s talking about. He can feel it in his bones.

Brittle vines of some wayward plant that has tried to escape this pitiful excuse for a garden have crawled halfway up the opposite wall of the small alley. A colorful beetle takes flight from one of the leaves as Matt stands there with his pulse hammering, waiting to hear his own name. It’s Luke who breaks the silence.

"There’s a lot more to Ben’s story than what you know," he says. "Do not be so quick to judge, Rey."

Matt’s vision narrows down to a crack in the wall in front of him as Luke’s words sink in. A low buzz has started up in his ears, like the rush of blood to his brain. He can’t really seem to work out what it means. A part of him wants to scream _liar_ , but… What is Luke saying?

When he turns back to the two standing beneath the hanging tree, Rey’s expression has hardened, thought her eyes are still wary. "I think I know enough to make up my mind."

Luke’s hand falls from Rey’s shoulder, some unspoken emotion written on his face. For a moment it’s as if he doesn't know how to proceed.

"Rey, I haven’t —," he doesn’t get any further than that. Whatever he was about to say is forgotten.

"What?" Rey asks, but he doesn’t answer. Luke tilts his head, his eyebrows drawn down.

Matt senses it before it happens. He doesn’t see Luke swing his head around to catch who’s been lingering in his peripheral vision. By that time he has already turned on his heel and started running.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this please let me know in the comments!
> 
> I'm Somaybelikeno on tumblr :)


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